Day 5 - Risks and opportunities. (Not for publication until Ankara report)

At this stage of the excavations choices have to be made, which limit what can be done in the final week, when recording becomes top priority. By now, we have a fairly good idea of what the potential of each site is, due to deturfing and cleaning being complete. In Trench 1 the site is almost completely ready for pre-ex planning via orthophotography, with the overall sequence becoming clear. We are not expecting any surprises, and will probably end up extending the trench because most of the remaining work will involve drawing and small-scale excavations of gaps in the mortar floor. In Trench 2 things are less clear. The site is clearly far more disturbed than trench 1. The ‘roof layer’ of tile in the portico has now disappeared and the soil has become rubble again, as is some encroaching structure lies in the portico under its roof. We are expecting to hit the floor today. Back in the ‘shop’, the first indications of a rear wall are presenting themselves, which we will check with a sondage through the rubble before going further. At least we established that there is a pier here, of mixed tile and stone, which may be one corner.

Old excavation trench now being cleaned into a profile

Some hard digging to remove the rest of the rubble will then follow.

Thank goodness we have 9 workmen to do this for us. The temperature on site was unbearable in the afternoon yesterday, even for them, with a cola break added to the tea break. Everyone was starting to fade a bit. Now it is great clouds of dust, as we have a cooling wind, which buffets across the site, making my pagoda creak to its limits. It may well become a hot wind later. The fools amongst us are keeping up their sun tans, whereas more sensible parties have long-sleeved T-shirt to keep the sun off as long as possible. But it is dust that is causing most difficulty, to breathing and to our clean archaeological surfaces, increasingly covered by massive white tarpaulins, trying to keep the floor foundation mortar from drying out. There is one place out of the wind: a former excavation now exposed in trench 1, where we are hoping to record a measured profile. This has now reached solid rock. Here ancient structures are well-founded and have not moved: the sequence is easy. But all around the slope has collapsed, in the 6th c. or later. Our job now is try to recognise which traumatic event this relates to, earthquake or not.

Finally, we will be plannng out a series of sondages today, as part of our work dating the different areas of paving which were recorded in 2006 and in 2021. The street is a patchwork of repairs with original first century paving surviving in places, especially towards the southern end of the street. What follows could be considered a mini-history of engineering, as successive city councillors, then later bishops, sought to keep the main street looking good, whilst also maintaining its buried water pipes. But for us it is also a chance to explore the history and nature of spolia. We know that there are many areas of reused slabs, betrayed by exposed clamps, or mismatching stone colours, or very varied sizes. Our hope is that we will be able to date some of these different interventions to see if they correlate with different time periods, although the evidence from trench one seems to be that different styles of spolia building can coexist. The jury is still out on ‘decline’ in Roman building work, but we hope to provide some useful insights into the question.

The back wall appearing in trench 2

Exceptionally large reused slabs on the colonnaded street