Friday was also spent inside working on projects. I will be rapping up my blog. Overall my experience in the class was very educational. I enjoyed not having to be in class and to be able to work with my hands. My team and I were able to get things done and cooperate well together. My favorite part of the class was being able to uncover artifacts that I probably would of never thought of before.

Due to rain we were unable to work on the field today. So we started our final projects. First though we had to make our previous projects up to par. The whole day was spent inside working on our computers.

Today was a rather slow day. Did not really find anything to interesting. The team closest to mine uncovered a skeleton but were unable to fully articulate it.

Today we began cleaning the big pot that we recovered the other day. It wasn't too bad and didn't take very long to clean. It was pretty well intact only two pieces had chipped off. We also cleaned the Basalt grinder which had dirt in small spaces. It took a little more time to fully clean it. The other team went out to the field and continued digging trying to uncover a skeleton that was partially uncovered.

Today we just continued leveling our square. We were unable to find anything to interesting,but the other square that just started up a few days ago found a skeleton. They first uncovered its shoulder region. As they went farther down they were able to determine that is was a child. Some of the diggers at first thought it was a midget. The head archaeologist said that its was probably no probable.

Today we had alot of time on the field. We Were able to move a lot of dirt. We were finally able to remove the pot that was close to our balk. I had to remove the dirt and sift what was remaining in the pot itself. We also found a basalt grinder but were unable to find the pounder.

We went out to the field and got started pretty quickly. We rapidly chopped up dirt with the pickax. My team was able to move a lot of dirt out of the square almost bringing the square to an even top. Also we have almost reached to the point on the pot in our square were we will be able to uncover totally.

First day back in class for a week. My group went out to the field and rebuilt the wall the was knocked over in our first square. The other groups cleaned there mc's. One group finished cleaning and fixing a household god. They also cleaned a vase that was intricately painted.

Today we resumed work back to normal speed. My team was able to move a good amount of dirt. One team located a metal plate it was very light weight and also had some intrecate design painted onto it. Also another team began to shape a new square which they are soon to move into.

Today we went out on the site for the first time since 2 weeks ago due to rain. A lot of balks were down in most of the squares. In my square a pot that was upside down is showing just on the edge of an interior balk. One team found an intricate pot which had some sort of pipe inside of it. Today wasnt really the best work day it was more of reforming our squares.

Today we worked on some research on specific items which the students chose. I am doing a painted pot which we found on the field. I searched the internet looking for roman replicas that have been found at other dig sites around the world. I was able to find a good amount of information.

This week due to rain we will be spending our time inside. We will have to wait until it gets dry on th site until we are able to begin digging again.

Today was filled with the smell of vinegar due to a paste we were cleaning a statue with. Also a lot of gluing was taking place. One team was gluing a clay plate. Another team was gluing two statues. Another team was gluing a marble plate and a marble glass. Overall a pretty productive and educational day.

Today all the teams got out to the field pretty late. So as soon as my whole team got out there we started digging. We moved over six buckets full, which is pretty productive. There was a few find but none more significant than the past. One team is almost to the base of their square going off and m.c that is resting in the center of their square. Also we were taught how to sweep the base of the square and to learn how it is the base.

Today we leveled our whole square and also went down a few cm. on one half. One of the other squares found a marble plate in a corner of their square. It was broken into three different pieces. The other square found a shield that goes to one of their statues. My team was able to move a lot of dirt today.

Today we didn't find anything to interesting. We did almost level our whole square. Another team found a glass bowl and some fabric. The glass bowl had been chipped a little bit from the pickax. Also the other team found the bottom of their wall which is below 2 feet of dirt.

Today we cleaned the mc's(material culture) that we uncovered in the previous weeks. We were looking for any encryptions or items that would lead to its origin. The other team cleaned the sword and the statues they had found a week ago. The located some of the shattered pieces of an ivory statue that were misplaced in the dirt. No one really went into any farther studying of any of their material culture.

Today we did not find to much. We did although clear a mound that was in the square. One of the teams is almost do the bottom of there square which they know by going by a wall that sits in most of there square.

Today we continued to level the rest of our square it is about 3/4's leveled out now. Thought we may get a little farther, but there were too many finds to count. In our square we uncovered an oil lamp and a very small pot with a little colored spots. The big pot located on the northern side of the square is almost totally uncovered. Another square uncovered a household god and a mosaic tile. They also found bits and peices of another wing-like statue but yet to find out what it is.

Today we continued leveling. We have leveled about one half of our square. The big pot that is slightly uncovered in our square seems to have been chipped about a 3 inch piece on the lip of the pot. It is about 3/4 uncovered. I would be surprised if it wasn't uncovered fully by tomorrow. Another square has located a house hold god of some sort they are still in the proces of articulating it.

Today we took some younger students out to our dig site. We taught them how to use a patiche and a trowel. We also taught them them basics of the dig-site. We took them over to the dump site and let them practice with the dig instruments and let them find the misc. items. They seemed to have fun digging around in the dirt.

Today we continued moving dirt out of our square. Another team found a well intact saber sword that looks like it is roman.

Today we began to level out more of our square. At the beginning we were leveling just about one fourth of it. Now we are working on leveling ad least half of it. Soon we will be leveling the whole square, but we have a lot of dips and hills so it is just taking a little time. Didn't find any significant finds today, but another team articulated and recovered a marble plate that seems to be fairly new compared to our Jewish home finds in our other square. Interesting to see what time peiod that comes from.

Today we went out to the field. It was slightly wrecked from the storm. We put up some more sun resistant rubber bands on our boundary lines. We began to pick axe a few mor centimeters and unloaded a few bucket fulls of dirt and then leveled off. Overall a pretty uneventful day.

Today was filled with paper work.We were taught how to plot points on a topography graph in order to see where material culture(artifacts) were located in order to better understand its origin.

Today we continued leveling are square. We didn't really find anything exciting. We just moved a couple buckets full of dirt out of the square and sifted it. No other squares really found too much either.

today we began to level our new square, it didn't seem like we got to far but we were able to recover a gold and silver coin , but are not yet sure of its origin, also we had some items on the surface to begin with such as a small pot and a quite large red jugglet but have not yet articulated the large juglet due to it being in the ground about 10 or 20 c.m.

this week after fully articulating our previous square moved on to a much larger square in the middle of the field, today we just worked on getting the boundaries up and attaching string on to the posts in the square

today we surveyed the dig site from the classroom and identified some objects, the most metionable of which was a stone that has been engraved meaning the house of David, we also started to hypothesize how large the building was in which corners have been uncovered in certain squares

today we have completely articulated the wall on the southern side of our square at about half way down we uncovered a iron nail that we believe was holding beams together. the nail much like resembled a railroad tie in present day

we have began to articulate the wall on the southern side of the square, while getting the surface level with the wall we carefully articulated another wooden beam increasing our thoughts that the still standing wall was remains to a jewish home

today my team articulated two quite large logs that we assume to be wooden beams to a jewish home we photographed and placed pottery tags on them for further research

today we uncovered and articulated a peice of a brick that we beleive may be a part of a jewish home i put a pottery tag on it and put it in the material culture basket for further research

today we found a coin on top of the ground in our square I labeled it and put a pottery tag on it ready for cleaning and research

we continued working in our square i made sure my team stayed on task and was working level not just digging a whole we made slow progress but progress adleast.

today as soon as we go out to the field we took elevations and started moving dirt out of the square to the sifting site