Day 2

Second day of the season and we start on the excavation of the possible Mill site. Most of today was spent doing the preliminary work on site and setting up so that we could start proper the following day. Lesley took some students to teach them the setting up of the total station and then preceded to spend the rest of the day setting out a five metre grid over the area that we wanted to excavate, immediately south-east of the Reservoir. The remainder of the teach started by clearing the rubbish across the area. Unfortunately dumps of rubbish are common in Palestine and therefore a lot of the preliminary work involves removing rubbish in order to provide a clean and safe area for the students to work. We also had to clear a large area of spoil in this area. It appears that a a large hole had been excavated in this area, possibly as part of the hosing estate that has been and continues to be constructed surrounding the site. While this is unfortunate for destroying archaeological information, we will take advantage of the area and it allows us to view stratigraphy at a much lower level without a large amount of excavation. Finally, with the help of some local builders, who not only provided the equipment but also the help for free, we shored up a part of vaulted ceiling which forms one side of the structure we are investigating. Health and safety is a very important part of the work we do and while we want to excavate within the building, we need to make sure this is safe to do so for our students and ourselves. It was a hard days work but we were all set up to start excavating properly the next day.

In the evening I gave a lecture to the group on excavation and recording techniques and then we discussed afterwards mixing the system we use in England with that of the system that the Palestine department of antiquities. The systems are not that different and it will be an interesting mix of two methods in order to teach the students single context recording as well as methods from from the Middle East. We decided to use a traditional grid system for each trench, with a one metre baulk inbetween, but also being flexible to extend or join trenches together. For each of these trenches will employ the single context method including planning, photography and lined into surveying using the total station. I couldn't wait to get started.