The Psychology of Archaeology

Salvete Omnes,

Although it has been quite some time since I last spoke with you, I am grateful to be allowed the opportunity to do so once more. As some of you may remember, I was a part of the Carthage College 2018 Mandeure excavation as well as the 2017 Omrit excavation- both of which are covered in the archives of this blog. Regardless of my prior experiences, this year has proved to be vastly different. Since I am now a returning member of the Mandeure dig, I have been granted the priviledge of additional responsibilities. Furthermore, the relationships that I established last season with some of the crew have flourished into something both more meaningful and more mature. For that I am inevitably grateful.

Instead of discussing my field work with you– which both Alissa and Andrew have so gratiously done already– I will describe today’s excursion. Nevertheless, I should say that I am eager to continue exploring the pulpitum and the skene as this season progresses.

Today began like most in Mandeure- a persistant alarm intruding one’s dreams and a quick breakfast with the crew before leaving the fieldhouse. Afterwhich, we made our way to Besançon (approximately an hour South of Mandeure). Covered in stone that bleed from the streets onto the shops and homes, the city was reminescent of a fairy tale. Upon entering the city we were first met with a statue of Victor Hugo, who’s birthplace was in the city. We would witness several dedicatory monuments to the famous author throughout the duration of our visit. As the day progressed, we visited several sites and explored a great many others: the museum, the citadel, the triumphal ancient Roman arch, and so on. I feel as though I will forever be astounded at the capabilities of man. From the implimentation of war, to the application of tools, to the invention of technology, and to the creation of art, man has always managed to push boundaries in an attempt to engage with the world around them. Being able to witness these endeavors through their physical remains (i.e. votive offerings, weapons, etc.) enables us to appreciate not only our own history, but also our constant pursuit of advancement. In many ways, archaeology can then be perceived as a psychological science.

Until Next Time,

Brooke Marie Weltch

 

Another Brick in the Wall

Another day with the trowel has come and gone. Over the last few days, I have been working with the team at the orchestra at the theatre at Epomanduodurum. As of now, we are excavating the pulpitum, in which we have recently unearthed the foundations of a wall. Today, I have been digging in one area in the hopes of exposing a second layer of the wall on the northern side of the trench, as two layers have as such been discovered previously on the opposite end. There have been some interesting finds in the last few days–yesterday, I found a fragment of a mandible (containing two molars) of an ungulate, probably belonging to a young bovine; other members have found nails; everyone has uncovered bags and bags of ceramic fragments; and one member of the team made a particularly exciting discovery of a copper as coin, confirming our proximity to antique layers–but my search for additional bricks of this wall has proved unsuccessful, with one supervisor remarking “très bizarre” on ostensible absence of something assumed to be present. The long search was admittedly rendered longer through fault of my own due to my reluctance for the first few hours to use a pickaxe on the soil dried hardened by the August sunlight. Because of my previous experience at paleontological sites, including one site that was composed primarily of extremely fragile 200,000 year old mammoth bones preserved solely through desiccation– this is my first time participating at a classical archaeological dig–I found myself a bit gun-shy, nervous about damaging features. It was only after reassurance to the contrary that I began to proceed with more heavy weaponry than my trowel. Regardless, after a while of swinging the pickaxe like the dirt owed me money, the ground at my designated section yielded nothing but the odd ceramic fragment here and there.

I should now clarify that the tone of my statement of today’s events should not be mistaken for disappointment. Patience, of course, is of great importance to archaeology in practice, but moreover, a sense of surprise trumped any feeling of disappointment. Senior members and supervisors treated the presence of another wall as a given; its absence, rendering the structure asymmetrical, could potentially have some interesting implications. Many features of the theatre have been damaged over the years–lamentable examples of visitors shooting fireworks, and, worse, maintenance workers laying drainage pipes underground with no regard for the importance of stratigraphic context come to mind– and this wall’s absence may be due to recent causes. However, it could have happened in antiquity, or it may even have never existed, which would be truly interesting and perplexing.

I’ve been growing much closer with my classmates from Carthage as well as the French archaeologists I’ve had the privilege of working with. I cannot speak French (I’m tempted to try beyond the standard “bonjour” or “merci” at times, but I feel like an unfathomable miasma of Latin mixed with Spanish and pseudo-Italian with a cartoonish inflection would probably pour forth instead, embarrassing everyone involved) but I’m delighted to find I can understand more and more of the French spoken by my colleagues. Additionally, I am increasingly falling in love with the French countryside, which reminds me of my native rural Wisconsin at times, but with a distinctive pastoral charm all of its own. I am thoroughly enjoying my time at Mandeure, and I am savoring every moment at this extraordinary site in this lovely town in this beautiful country.

Thank you,

Andrew Goebel

Celebration and Discovery

Bon jour!

It’s Brooke’s birthday today! She had a warm welcome at breakfast from the professors in the form of a song as well as everyone offering her cookies all day.

The dig so far has been quite the adventure. I had never participated in an archaeological dig before this one, so I’m still getting used to the best ways of doing things, but both the French students and the American ones who have been on digs before have all been providing great advice.

I have been working on the orchestra and the palpitum all week and a lot has been uncovered. We cleaned the orchestra. We have uncovered a fallen wall of the pulpitum and the foundation of the structure. We have also uncovered a reconstructed drain canal from the 1980s, which when they inserted that, they only dig down in that spot, so the remaining portion has never been uncovered until now. Our team has also discovered many smaller artifacts, including a few bones, lots of roof tiles, some clay pottery shards, and two coins.

Our team has split into smaller groups taking turns pick axing, hoeing, and shoveling. Depending on how close we are to the wheelbarrow, we also had people running buckets of dirt to dump.

It has been a lot of hard work in a variety of weather conditions, but it has been so fascinating seeing the places where the events I have learned about for so long have actually taken place. Classics classes always seem to go back to religious rituals and those same rituals likely happened right where we are digging. That’s absolutely incredible. I cannot wait to uncover and learn more!

Below are also a couple pictures of the orchestra and the pulpitum before it was uncovered.

Merci,

Alissa Marek-Spartz

A Rainy Day in Mandeure

Bonjour m’es amis!

The past few days my square has been working on uncovering a road that is located behind the back wall of the Theatre. There is so much dirt that we have been digging the top layer of soil for almost all three days of work! There is lots of hard packed dirt on top of the tightly packed gravel that served as the main road to the Theatre. Two other members of my square have been digging a trench that contains two post holes. The rain hit Mandure at about 10:30 this morning and although we worked for a little bit through the weather, eventually we cleaned up and decided to document our finndings instead. I learned all about how to document each section and layer of what we were excevating.

This afternoon we decided to take some time off of digging because of the weather. We traveled to a nearby city and learned more about artifacts found at the Mandeure site!

I can’t wait to start digging again tomorrow!

Attached are some pictures of my square where we have been digging for the past few days as well as the museum we visited today!

Hannah Pearson