Day 2 - Excavation Begins

Another hot day on the Colonnaded Street and Lower Agora with occasional powerful gusts of wind. Enough to make me worried that the ‘Tychaion’ canopy might be air-borne at any minute, to make me into some kind of archaeological Mary Poppins flying out over the valley down to Ağlasun. The wind has also raked up the dust in an unhelpful way, leaving me gasping, as I wear out the end of a chesty cough.

Weather aside, we have had a great day so far, with Trench 1 becoming truly clear. We hope to reveal the internal plan soon. Have we got shops or simply cellular rooms? Perhaps they were built like this or perhaps an owner bought out his neighbour and broke through to make them into a joining pair.

On the outside, onto the agora, the ‘shops’ give out not onto a portico but onto a very wide sidewalk, made of huge reused slabs, put here no doubt in a 6th c, part of a rebuilding of the whole south side of the plaza. Here, the 1990s excavation found the remains of a water channel, laid out in tiles, of a number of phases, but which we know, from excavation elsewhere was established in the 7th c., to serve the mid-Byzantine castrum at the bottom of the street.

Down on Trench 2 things are a little less advanced, with turf removal now being complete. But the outline of the portico is clear, and we pretty sure to have found the back wall of the adjacent shop, which we intend to excavate, along with portico, over the next week or so. One metre of stony rubble is expected within the shop, in comparison with its neighbours, which will require a good deal of hard labour to clear. That is of course why you need eight workmen and their sharp-minded supervisor.