Week Two

It has been an intense week working under the Alentejo sun. Now that the second week of excavation has come to a close the speed of the crew has rapidly increased from cleaning the week before. The work is decidedly more complicated but the reward is far greater. Each layer gets us closer to learning more about the site’s past.

Now that our weeks have settled into a pattern, I should probably take a moment to describe an average day in the life of a Santa Susana crew member.

The crew wakes up around six in the morning and has a small breakfast, comprised mainly of coffee, at the dig house. At seven fifteen we squeeze into two tried and true vans and make our way to the site, which is about ten minutes away. Once on site we get to work. I am in the process of excavating a part of what we believe to be the bathhouse, and have been in the same sector for the past week. I am enjoying working in the same area and seeing each layer revealed as we move forward. “Depth equals data” is the mantra of one of our directors, and as we continue on I see its relevance firsthand. Our area has many rocks that have made hand picks a necessity. This had led to many hours of pounding into the dirt with the pick and meticulously scraping away the loose soil to reveal features underneath. One of my crew members uncovered a plaster floor, and its appearance has made determining the stratigraphy of the unit far easier than anticipated. I am looking forward to seeing how far this sector will progress over the remainder of the season.

I work on my area of the site, picking and cleaning and moving and sifting, until around ten when we break for water and a snack. After the break we resume our previous activities, usually having made enough progress to either begin excavating another section of the site or make drawings and take elevations for our records. This continues until around one, when we get in the vans again and make our way to lunch at a local café in town, Vicente’s. This café is definitely the greatest restaurant in Portugal, and probably the greatest in the world. I have greatly enjoyed trying all kinds of the local Portuguese food, and Vicente is more than happy to make sure the tired and dusty archaeologists crammed into his little café are able to do so.

The view of the site from the top of the church

After lunch we make our way back to the house for pottery washing, a process which takes anywhere from one to two hours. Our site has a manageable amount of pottery, and with all of us working the cleaning goes by quickly. Once pottery washing is done we usually have a break where the crew goes to a nearby cultural center for WiFi. Some days around five or six we will go to the community center for a lecture by our directors and supervisors, the topics which have been Roman villa culture and survey archaeology thus far, or on a tour of local sites around the town with our Portuguese director. These will commence by eight at the latest, when we all gather back at the house for dinner. After that comes one of my favorite parts of the day after site, rooftop bar, where we gather on the roof deck of the house with the leftover beverages from dinner and talk while the sun sets over Redondo. Then it’s usually an early bedtime for all of us and up again the next day!

 One variation on this weekday routine is going into lab rather than site, an aspect of field school I tried for the first time on Friday. This entails labelling the finds and recording them for the project’s database. After a few hours the abundance of spreadsheets and fumes from the clear nail polish used for labeling pottery can become a bit overwhelming, but I greatly enjoyed being able to see all the material that I had not excavated or washed and put it into order. Occasionally lab extends until after lunch if there are many finds from the day before.

Pottery to be labelled and recorded

On weekends the schedule is entirely different as we take trips to neighboring sites and towns. This weekend we went to Evora, a UNESCO world heritage site, on Friday to explore the town’s museums and a festival. One of my favorite features of the town was the bone chapel, as well as the temple. On Saturday we ventured out to a villa site, a fortress, and a Roman city. It is exciting to be able to make comparisons between the sites we see every weekend and our own site as excavation continues. I am also really enjoying exploring other modern towns in the region to see a slice of Portuguese culture in each place we go.

Temple of Diana, Evora

Next week will bring further excavation in the bathhouse as well as increased survey. For now, bom dia!

Week One

Ola from Redondo! I have officially made it through my first week on an archaeological dig. While I am excited to share the events of the week I will start by introducing the site where I am beginning my training in field work. Santa Susana is a Roman villa complex in Redondo, Portugal from the 1^st through 6^th century CE. There are two main sectors currently undergoing excavation and about twenty crew members working on site. As of now we are excavating what is believed to be the bathhouse and an older part of the site included in the pars urbana. The site will expand over time as excavation moves to areas that are being surveyed presently. My interest in this site is grounded in classics and the expansion of empire to neighboring territories resulting in the combination and transplantation of culture, and I am looking forward to getting up close and personal with material culture related to these topics.

Redondo, Portugal

This week was mostly spent cleaning the site. Unfortunately, during the winter the site was disturbed by cows and tarps were removed. This led to an abundance of weeds and a cleaning process that continued for a significantly longer period of time than anticipated. While this was at times exhausting, I was able to become very familiar with proper cleaning techniques. I learned how to use a trowel and brush to clear the loose dirt and distinguish surface dirt from the stratum below. Even though cleaning is tedious it was truly incredible to see how the site transitioned from overgrown and unkempt to defined and prepared for excavation. This is my first experience on a site, so all activities feel like monumental tasks, no matter how small. Everything from taking elevations and drawing the sectors to piecing pottery back together after washing reveals a new aspect of the past. The excitement is palpable among the crew as new features are revealed, regardless of how big or small. It keeps me enthralled with the work here.

As the week progressed, the site moved from cleaning to more diverse activities. Excavation began using hand picks on small areas of the site and enough pottery and tesserae were collected to start learning how to clean. On Thursday a geophysics team from a local university came to survey the site. As they ran the cart carrying a magnetometer and GPR over the ground to assess features underneath we aided them by removing rocks from their path and measuring stretches of ground in meters to be surveyed. The operator would occasionally call us over to show us features just beneath the soles of our shoes. It was fascinating to look onto a tiny screen and see the potential of the site.

Another very exciting aspect of the week was learning how to fly a drone. We will be doing aerial survey at the site this year, so crew members are practicing using a lighter and cheaper drone before we break out the drone that will be used for the actual images. I took my first try at flying our drone, lovingly nicknamed Charlie, on Friday. The winds and birds of the Alentejo region are not kind to the little 100 gram drone, but after a few runs and crash landings I was able to keep it in place, maneuver, and even take pictures. I am looking forward to going out into the rolling hills and using the equipment in the weeks to come.

Flying Charlie

The week culminated in a trip to a neighboring villa site, Sao Cucufate, a Roman city, Mirobriga, and the beach. At Mirobriga a bath complex extends over a large patch of land, the monumental architecture dominating a dip in the hills. Climbing among the ruins was a profound experience. I am finding that being at a site allows me to imagine the people who lived and died there in vivid detail. The material culture they left behind brings them to life and their world is made real.

The bath complex at Mirobriga

Among the hustle and bustle of the dig this week I've been thinking a lot about a conversation I had with a woman on my flight to Lisbon. After describing the type of work I would be doing on site she remarked that my generation was part of a global community, more so now than ever. I find a lot of truth in that, especially here where I am immersed not only in the culture of Redondo but the ruins of an empire that existed millennia ago and still remains a presence in my world and the world of others. I can draw parallels from my life to the culture of the town and the site every day while celebrating the differences that define us.

I am excited to see how the week progresses when we begin lab work and survey in earnest. Stay tuned to hear more from Santa Susana!