On friday the bus to take us to Gabii was 20 minutes late so we spent a nice morning standing in Piazza Ipolito Nievo waiting around. Once it finally did come and we made it to Gabii, Darius, Albert and Dr. Pollini were there to meet us and spend the day on the site with us. It was nice to see them because now that we're no digging on their site our group feels a little orphaned.
The AIRC videotapes a lot of the goings on with their programs (Albert is a videographer as well as an archaeologist and Darius is a celebrity archaeologist) so they spent the day on tours of the excavation areas doing interviews with the site directors, and trenchmasters. (as well as visiting us and seeing how we were doing)
As for the archaeological part of today, I spent the first part of the day defining the floor preparation which I had started on thursday. The area of floor was larger than expected and kept popping up in some places and disapearing in others. I was working with a partner to trowel the area and try and determine the edges of the remaining floor prep in order to know where it was safe to pick-axe ithout destroying any features,
The floor preparation is part of a larger Stratographic Unit (SU) which several people were working in. We were all working to rempve the same layer so as the day went on there was less room for us (you can't stand in an excavated area which you've already cleaned until it is documented or you'll make more work for yourself in having to brush down your footprints and any loose dirt youve kicked up. Once there were too many people working in a small space Jamie moved me to a new Stratographic Unit so nobody murdered anyone else with their pickaxe.
The Stratographic Unit I was reassigned to was the once which Sheira and I had cleaned after the rain a couple days ago. Andrea the trench assistant was given AJ and I to help her bring it down to the next level and see what was going on in the Area. We began pickaxeing and I revealed what is perhaps a floor - the dirt is very compact and clayey, almost rock like but it has mane made inclusions like tile and pottery. AJ's side of the SU popped out yet another wall - the SU is bounded by 2 walls, one robbing trench wall and contains the remains of 4 other walls most of wich are in contrasting orientations. weird.
I had a fun afternoon with Andrea and AJ, we had good chats and laughed a lot. Andrea coached AJ and I on a perfect shovel toss. I think I'm getit it down. The goal is to jerk the shovel in the right way so that the shovelfull of dirt keeps the contours of the shovel (you can see the indent of the handle in the dirt while it's in the air.) It's not only faster to shovel when you can toss the dirt into the wheelbarrow from a couple feet away without spilling, but then you also don't hit the person who is sifting the dirt in the wheelbarrow by trying to tip the shovelfull into the barrow.
The final part of the afternoon revealed the continuation of another wall we had seen part of previously. Andrea then asked us to scrape down and sweep up the SU so that she and Jamie could try and determine what the heck was going on with all the walls and flooring in the area. Perhaps Jamie's monday pep talk and area review will provide us with some iluminating theories or explanations.
After work on friday a bunch of people from the program decided to go out for drinks in the piazza which several of our appartments are near (the one where il Tulipo, Claudio's pizza place is) While getting ready to go out who do I get a call from but Grayson! He had driven into Rome with Jason (the Poggio Civitate dig assistant director) on a whim (decided 30 minutes before leaving) and wanted to see what I was up to. We made plans to meet up after he and Jason found a place to stay (good planning) and found some food.
The place our goup met for drinks is right next to il Tulipo. it's kind of an odd place - Beer Pong table outside, ladies night (2 for 1) every night from 8-12 and a very pregnant bartender (weird image) she is super sweet and makes good drinks though. We had a fun and tipsy night (some people more tipsy then others.... italian drinks are expensive and strong.)
Grayson called me as we were finishing up ladies night and I met him and Jason at a bar called Freni et Frizioni for Mojitos and new scavi gossip. It made me really miss last year's group and kind of wish that I had decided to be staff at Scavi this year. I actually might use a couple days I scheduled at the end of my euro trip to go visit Vescovado since they finish digging after my program is already over. According to Grayson the Albergo di Murlo is poppin' this year because Gianluca has taken it over from Sinora. Grappa shots for everyone!
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