When you find yourself in a hole...

Keep digging. Though not too far as you might go through the 1960s backfill and into the Severan-era (late-2nd century AD) sandfill.

This week we started to really open up the other half of our trench. To our happiness (and more to the point, to LMW's happiness), we found lots of floor in the new section. Intact floor means that we have a perfectly-preserved (or at least in theory) stratigraphy below the floor, which will allow us to better date the building stages of the synagogue complex. This is really cool because that's essentially the entire goal of the dig--settling on a precise dating for the various stages of its growth (not finding the Ark of the Covenant). There was, however, a chunk of the section that did not have a floor near the surface; this was stuff that was dug up by excavators in the 1960s and not well-documented. So Tony and I set about to dig. And dig. And dig. When we got a meter and a half down, LMW informed us that we had gone through the backfill and into the ancient sand. Not very cool, but whatever was in the Severan era sandfill was not going to tell us a lot about the chronology of the site because (a) we already know that it's from the Severan era and (b) it was not preserved under a "hard seal" like a floor.

Today we set about cleaning up the walls (I like the idea of cleaning dirt) so that we could get some nice pictures with the camera of what we do have. I was finishing up my cleaning (the trench is deep enough only for one person to work comfortably at a time) when I struck something hard. I wiped a corner off with my trowel and it didn't move. I carefully troweled off what I'd found and saw that I'd found a rather sizable chunk of serpentino marble...which was pretty cool

In the end, there wasn't much this marble could tell us--it was part of the fill which made it essentially ancient trash. Pretty trash, but still trash. But this excavation WAS able to give us a better look at the foundations and we puzzled over what they all meant this afternoon.

I'm including a labeled photo above (click to make things bigger!). So what we have is a pier that might or might not be bonded with the wall. We know that the wall is part of an opus mixtum a shell for the synagogue and we know that the pier is one of several running down the length of the room we're working in. When we dug down, we saw a crevice between the two which suggested that the two might have been separate construction builds. Moreover, under the foundation of the wall (a foundation done shutter-style...i.e. they built a small shell of wood to frame the concrete pour and then removed the wood when  dry) there is a recessed amount of concrete--a previous wall?

In the course of the afternoon, after probing and poking, we are pretty sure that the upper foundation joins with the pier foundation (which was made by digging a hole and pouring concrete directly into that) but that the shuttering would have been done somewhat later than the pier's foundation. As for the recessed portion? Probably a part of the main foundation; it's only like that because in the process of making the shuttered foundation, the builders would have dug a hole and then as the hole widened out at the top, they put in the shutters to control the width of the pour.

Ah archaeology. If it weren't so gritty and dirty, I might really enjoy it.

A few of my favorite things, part IV

Photo Bombing Tourists

I'm not going to have a photo for this one, but I'd like to take a moment to talk about one of my favorite things to do while running in my favorite city in the world--photo bombing photos of tourist, particularly large groups of tourists. If you've been to Rome, you'll recall the large groups of people, all wearing similar hats or the same type of shirt, following a tour guide with a flag sticking high in the air as if he/she were the guide equivalent to Mount Everest. These groups of people annoy me. They walk slowly and a large percentage of the time, the guide gets stuff wrong. Plus they all stop to take the typical photo of each famous place in the city. And so, as a runner, they often impede my progress as I try to make my way out and about on my daily run. I used to stop and let photos be taken but that is a process that does not end. Instead, I've discovered that it gives a perverse little thrill to think that when they go home and download their photos onto their computer, I'll be showing up as a blue-shirted blur racing through their image.

That makes me happy.

One week

So I'm done with one week of archaeologizing and I have a few general observations:

--First, it's a lot of work. Especially out in the Roman sun when we don't really get any shade. It gets hot out there and I have the most awesome tan lines where my watch normally sits. So much sweat and disgustingness at the end of the day.
--Secondly, it's a pain in the ass to make the commute in to the site everyday. 20 minutes waiting for the 719 (during which I enjoy a cappuccino...which I don't drink in the States but are fabulous at the Alari cafe next to the bus stop), 10 minutes on the 719  to the Pyramide train station for a 30 minute ride followed by a 20-25 minute walk through the entire site of Ostia to gather our equipment and transport it to the site. Add in a mile(ish) walk to lunch every day, I think I'm doing upwards of 7 miles of walking every day on top of the massive amounts of shoveling. Whew.
--And finally, today was a productive day in the trench; we opened the other half of the trench and found a LOT of floor barely under the topsoil. The reason floors (especially vast amounts of floor) are important to archaeologists is because when we remove the floor, it will provide undisturbed stratigraphic layers containing items that we can use to date the floor above it and thus allow us to have an idea about the development of the site. Speaking of stratigraphic elements, we found a coin in the trench today! A tiny little coin (probably a nummus from the 4th or 5th century) but a coin...although its location on the top of the floor (basically in soil  with which the previous excavators had covered over the exposed elements) means that it was not originally located there and useless for dating, but a coin is pretty exciting.

Look, a coin!

Another cool thing we found today--plaster from the walls. If you look closely, you can see that it continues past the floor level, which means that this level of floor was added later than the wall.




That's enough archaeology for the week...look back tomorrow for another one of my favorite things in Rome!

My Trench, or My Life Covered in Dirt

Archaeology is a dirty business.

I guess I've been training for this type of job since I was young, playing for hours upon hours in the sandbox. Essentially, doing archaeology is a grown-up version of playing in the sandbox. Only dirtier. And for many hours in the hot sun every day. This was the first week of excavations and I am in what we think was a former pantry/kitchen for the synagogue complex.

A view from the north entrance of my trench

We know it was partially excavated by Squarciapino in the 1960s but we did not know how much of it had been done. The first thing we did when we started working on the trench (there are three of us working in this location--Amanda, Tony, and I) was to take detailed and precise measurements of the area we were excavating (we started with the southern half...we open the northern part tomorrow) and to draw them out on a plan where we could mark various features of the locus (basically a level of dirt) that we were working on. And then we opened the trench. The first thing we had to do was remove the layer of topsoil and grass and within the first hour of removing the topsoil, I found a floor. Now floors are very fun things in archaeology because they mean that whatever is below the floor can be used to date that level of building (hopefully coins, but pottery works well too).

Floor!

We continued excavating around the floor and found further fun finds in pot shards. My first pot shards. That makes me a real archaeologist because all that archaeologists love are pot shards (a small exaggeration).

I'm a real archaeologist!

Anyhow, by the end of the first day, we had found a shelf of original flooring that was only 5 centimeters or so below the topsoil. When we came back the next day, we were quite excited to articulate (dig down into the backfill from the earlier excavation) the floor that we had found so that the floor would stand out in the photos LMW takes of various stages of the excavations for documentation purposes. 

The floor, articulated.

We came back today (Tony and I had been pressed into duty digging out an old trench after we took this picture...we moved 15 cubic meters of dirt in a couple hours) and started work on pulling out the rest of the Squarciapino backfill and we found some really awesome stuff--two more layers of floor which will hopefully allow us to date the early structure more precisely than we have. Plus we dug a pretty deep hole--and there's a hole within the hole that seems to be some sort of small cavern (perhaps we will find some ancient evil a la Indiana Jones?). So things are going really well with this trench and we're excited to see what else we'll find when we start digging down on the rest of the trench.

Our fearless trench supervisor shows just how deep the trench has gotten

Our trench at the end of the day. On the left you can see the top floor level. The next level down is another floor and at the bottom you can make out what seems to be a base floor. We’ll have to pickax through that to get a sense as to what’s underneath this entire structure.

The Ostia Synagogue

I'm splitting this up into two posts--the general introduction to the site we're excavating and then later on, a discussion about the first couple days of excavation (I'll hopefully do that later tonight). So, the synagogue was first excavated in the early 60s by Maria Squarciapino (it was discovered during the construction of a road right next to it to connect Rome with the then-new Fiumacino Airport) and it was pretty obvious that it was a synagogue because of two stone carvings of menorahs. However, Squarciapino  dated the site to the first century CE, essentially stating that this was among the earliest synagogues in Europe, by relying upon sigillata, a type of pottery that was thought to go away after the first century (it didn't). Anyhow, Squarciapino did a rush job of the site, essentially reconstructing the site as best she could.


Nowadays, we date the first phase of the building to the second century CE, although it would be renovated over time (multiple renovations expanding the area). The first phase of the building is denoted by the wall type opus mixtum which basically had the diamond pattern of bricks (as shown below) framed by leveling rectangular bricks at windows and doors.

Anyhow, we can tell that there were multiple building phases as this synagogue expanded and grew. If you look below, you'll see the opus mixtum wall being broken to first allow a door and then that door being bricked up. We know this because (a) there are no framing rectangular bricks to denote that the door was original and (b) the brickwork that makes up the door is different from the opus mixtum. 

Anyhow, the structure is really neat, with a rather large worship space framed by four columns at the entrance (one slightly cracked which makes archaeologists think that the set was used). The architectural evidence points to it having been used up into the fifth and sixth century (and probably only became a synagogue in the  third century), which makes this place, while not one of the oldest synagogues in Europe, one of the more intriguing pieces of evidence for late antique life in Ostia.

The entryway to the assembly area (side view)

The Torah shrine

The former pantry/kitchen...and my working area! more on that later

Post postponed

We began digging today! But after a long day in the sun and a dang good run afterward, I'm a bit too worn out to write about it in any detail. Tomorrow though should be different.

Ostia

So a bit about where I'm working this summer--I'm not in Rome, but in the ancient port city of Rome, Ostia, located about 15 miles from the city proper (about 30 minutes by train). Ostia was founded, as far as tradition goes, by the fourth king of Rome, Ancus Martius in the 7th century BCE. The problem with that is that the earliest archaeological remains of the city only go back to the middle of the 4th century BCE, so there's a bit of a discrepancy there (just a bit!).

At any rate, Ostia was near and dear to the inner workings of Rome, as it functioned as one of the primary ports for the city (though most of the grain would be offloaded in Puteoli down on the Bay of Naples or in Portus (during the empire)) and was a thriving city for centuries--as far as we can tell, it was probably abandoned in the 9th or 10th century as the Tiber began to silt up and Ostia lost its position on the coast. The modern remains of Ostia are quite remarkable, largely preserving the city as it was at its height in the 2nd century CE when the core of the city was built. In the subsequent centuries, buildings would be remodeled and changed, but the footprint and skeleton of the Hadrianic city remained. If you were to compare Ostia with Pompeii, you could make the distinction of Pompeii being essentially a snapshot of what it once was, frozen in time by Vesuvius whereas Ostia is like a palimpsest, continually being cleared over so but retaining traces of what it once was. Anyhow, Ostia is a fabulous place and it's largely off the beaten track for tourists (especially on Mondays when it's closed to everyone except us!). It lacks the frescoes of Pompeii and any original statuary (thanks centuries of popes), but it has some fine black and white mosaics. I'll be sharing more about Ostia as we go along, but for now, here are some pictures.

Heading down the Via Ostiense toward the Rome Gate of Ostia

The fantastic mosaic in the Baths of Neptune

A look at the theater (which seats upward of 3,000 people and is one of two theaters that conform to Vitruvius' standards)

Hey look, one of the several mithraea in Ostia!

Inside a thermopolium (a bar/food establishment) that seems to have been in operation for centuries

And finally, a public latrine...hey, the Romans had to use the facilities too!

Tomorrow I'll take y'all to the synagogue and my dig

A few of my favorite things, part III

Trastevere market

So every Sunday morning, there is a market--a flea market, of sorts--in Trastevere. You can buy pretty much ANYTHING here, from knock-off shirts, to cheap artwork, to CDs and DVDs, to pretty much anything your heart might desire for cheap. I went in this morning and found a shirt (though i don't think i really want to put this shirt in the wash with any other clothing) that the dealer was asking for ten euros. Now that's too much (troppo caro!) so I was like five euros. We settled on seven euros and I rather like this shirt. Heck, I might wear it when I teach next year.

 Pots!

 Art!

The Market!

 Mice and computer stuff!

 Plants!

Random stuff!

A few of my favorite things, part II

The dome game

Because my body clock is a bit screwed up still, I was rather surprised to find myself awake at 5:30 this morning. I'm never awake at 5:30 in the morning. But I wasn't going to be able to fall back asleep, so at 7:00, I decided that I'd might as well get my run in for the day. I decided I wanted to head over to the Vatican via the Gianicolo Hill (i.e. one of my old stomping grounds from my Centro days). After summiting the hill (which is a real pain in the ass during the first mile), I headed over toward the Piazza Garibaldi where I came across my favorite vista of Rome. From the Piazza Garibaldi (so-named for one of the heroes of the Unification of Italy), the city stretches out before you. While up there, I'm a fan of playing the dome game in which you basically try to name as many of the domes (and other vertical landmarks) as possible. I am sorry to say that in the five years since I was last in Rome, my skills have slipped and I was only able to get five or six of the 30-or-so places. But I still have a month to get better!

The view from the Piazza Garibaldi (photo from 2006...I obviously don't carry a camera while running)

A few of my favorite things 1

The Manubial Temples at Largo Argentina

One of the customs in Ancient Rome was for victorious generals to dedicate temples to various deities/incarnations of ideas upon their triumph back in Rome. These temples tended to be on the Campus Martius, i.e. where the army would camp while waiting to triumph, as the Campus was outside of the city walls and therefore, it was legal to keep an army out there. Anyhow, at the Piazza di Largo Argentina, they've unearthed a cluster of four of these manubial temples, dating from the fourth to the second century BC, which now sit about 15 feet below the level of the modern street. These aren't huge temples, nor are they in great shape, but I think they're a pretty cool little thing to see.

But wait, there's more! If you're looking at these temples, you can spy a plethora of cats hanging around and for good reason--this is also a cat sanctuary. Upwards of 100 cats are taken care of by volunteers in a no-kill shelter that's housed within the grounds. These lucky kitties have the run of the place, lazing about on the column bases and generally being very happy felines.

 Aww, look at the kitties!

And one more...who doesn't live in the sanctuary. Oh that silly Cassander...

Trying anew

Okay so I kinda cut this thing short when I started this blog up in November. My bad.

Anyhow, I'm now in Rome, working on the Ostia Synagogue project as a way to (a) pay the bills and (b) get the hell out of Austin in the summer (it helps that I'm in Rome). I intend, over the next four weeks or so, to try to keep this thing updated with running tidbits, archaeological knowledges gained, and some of my favorite places/things to do in Rome. That's the plan at least. For this moment, I'm pretty worn out after two days of travel and a night out with Bart and Jon, so until later, ciao!

Where to travel?

So, due to work and whatnot, Zack will be leaving four days before I will from Italy, meaning that I have four days in which I can travel to a new and exciting place. Question is, where do I want to go? The options (as brought to you by Ryanair, the official airline of Andrew's extracurricular travel):

1. Paris--I haven't been in Paris since 2003 (and back when I was a minor and wasn't drinking wine) and it would be a thrill to go back. Added bonus--on the Sunday I'd be there, the Tour de France ends. It would be pretty damn cool to be hanging out on the Champs-Élysées to watch the finishing stretch, although finding lodging could be a pain in the ass.

2. Munich--Again, I haven't been there since 2003 (and I couldn't do the beerhalls!). That would be a great place to relax and unwind for a few days at the end of a working summer.

3. Barcelona--By Barcelona, I mean I'd be spending most of my time down the coast in Tarragona for its exquisite Roman ruins, although I'd be spending some time in Barcelona (a place I loved in 2006).

4. Madrid--A place I've never been but have heard wonderful things about, especially regarding its museums and parks.

5. Stockholm--Nordic rest and relaxation...a bit cooler than the Mediterranean. Plus there's the Gustavus factor that would make it pretty fun to visit.

6. Marrakesh--This is my current favorite. The sound of Marrakesh inspires wanderlust and the exoticism. Plus, it's the cheapest option.

So now I turn it over to you guys...if you have any thought, I welcome your iput!