Day 3 - Our shops start to get weird. (Not for publication unitl Ankara reeport)

Today was another of major advances in Trench 1, where Simon, Sam, and today Zsolt, have been making major advances with a strong team of workmen.. They have detected the remains of an earlier structure, a massive monumental platform, from which two huge slabs had been taken to relay the top of the agora gate stairs. One block presented a huge crack, perhaps the result of an earthquake that we know destroyed the adjacent Tiberian propylaeum. Our new structure is on a different alignment to the shops, perhaps explained by the movement of the ground here, obvious in patches of subsidence across the plaza, and by a number of cracked structures within it, both before and after the shops were built.

The block from a different structure at a different angle to the trench one shops

Within the shops, seem to be well on our way to establishing function having found a few items associated with retail. Down at Trench 2, the portico is now under full excavation, with a sneak peak at radar geophysics (by Prof. Dr. Caglayan Balkaya of the Department of Geophysical Engineering, Süleyman Demirel University in Isparta) has proved very useful in trench planning. The portico might turn out to be more interesting than the adjacent shop. Solinda is keen to carry out full excavation, but I want to plan strategy once we have the top of the walls that relate to it. For now, it is mass of heavy rocks. Still, a good range of finds are still coming out, that we will draw on. It will be tomorrow that the dig really takes shape here, as we advance thanks to Francis’ photogrammetry, which makes planning blocks, so difficult in the past, into something close to child’s play.