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