Tuesday 24th June 2014
The bones from inside the Mausoleum in Trench 1 are still being uncovered. This is the last day that they will be uncovered before they start to be removed tomorrow. This is because the longer the bones are exposed the more chance there is of them crumbling and falling apart due to the change in conditions. The skulls are all now fully visible, as are most of the upper halves of the bodies. Whilst excavating we are trying to keep the bones covered from the sun as much as possible so that it doesn’t start to dry them out too rapidly. The vessel that was uncovered in one of the graves yesterday has been uncovered even more, and it appears to be intact. It has been identified as a drinking vessel, and it is unclear as to whether it still has the pedestal on it. Paul Cheetham attempted to lift it, but relinquished the role to Libby Johnson, because she was the student to uncover the vessel in the first place. It took a while, but eventually it was lifted out of the ground and quickly examined, where it was discovered that the vessel had a pedestal at some point, but it had been broken off before being put in the grave. It is thought that the pedestal had been missing for some time before being buried, due to the wear patterns on the bottom of the vessel. It was suggested that it was possibly an heirloom. The soil from inside the vessel was kept for analysis to see if we can determine if the vessel held anything when it was buried. The rest of the skeletons are trying to be uncovered as fast as possible without moving any of the bones.
The trenches that are being excavated by the masters students have been coming along nicely. They seem to reveal a ditch that was reciting a different place. The original ditch was cut, and once it had been filled in it had been recut, but they had missed the original cut of it. The corner of the ditch is perfectly aligned, but then it splits off into two ditches where they hadn’t found the original spot.