2001 FIELD DIRECTOR'S DIARY Michael Thomas Reports from the end of the field season Week 5: After hours, Michael Thomas serenades the senior staff at Selve. We have just one week remaining, yet already I believe that our season has been a success. We have raised new questions about both the monumental building on top of the arx and the smaller building in the Podere Funghi. Up top, we seem to have evidence of building in the higher stratum 2, specifically the mudbrick in Trench PC 23. We now have to question our evidence for the construction phases at Poggio Colla. What I believe is that we have to reconsider the association of our strata with our building phases. We have, for three years, assumed that our stratum 3 on top of the hill is associated with Phase II of our building. Although this still seems to be the most likely scenario, we may have evidence of a mudbrick wall--at a level that we have always considered to be the packing for the third phase of the building--in a position that is more likely associated with the destruction of the Phase III building. At this point, however, until we see more conclusive evidence, it is too early in the game to rework our entire chronology. View of Trenches PC 22 (foreground) and 23 (background) from the west during Week 5 trench tours on the arx at Poggio Colla. Even more enticing is the evidence coming up in Podere Funghi Trenches 6 and 7. Here we have finally found what seems to be a kiln, or at least the footprint of a kiln. Robert Vander Poppen is overseeing the very careful excavation of the rubble around our possible kiln. Robert Belanger's trench is bringing up what seems to be the first traces of the roof which we now believe should hopefully allow us to reconstruct the roof tiles, something we have heretofore been unable to do anywhere on the site. Katy Blanchard has opened Trench PF 8 about 90 meters to the south where we are testing the results of Frank Vento's GPR findings from last week. Hopefully she will find evidence of a building where surface finds have always pointed to another structure in this field. View of Trenches PF 6 (foreground), PF 5, and PF 7 (background). I shall have more to say about Trench PC 18 next week, where Kate Topper's crew has finally reached the elusive stratum 5. This stratum holds what we hope are answers to the growing number of questions we have about this area. Director Greg Warden ponders while Field Director Michael Thomas discusses walls and tile fall in PF 6.   Week 6: Michael Thomas excavating in Trench PC 23. As the final week of excavation winds down, I am once again wishing that we still had more time to excavate, especially in trenches PC 18 and 23. Both of these trenches have just begun to reveal the extent of their potential. Gretchen Meyers' Trench PC 23, just in the past couple of days, has come down on several massive (over 80cms in length) worked blocks. We will, unfortunately, not know the function of these blocks until we reopen this trench next year. The same can be said of Kate Topper's Trench PC 18, where the discovery of several beautiful fragments of bucchero chalices, combined with numerous coarse ware fragments, has done nothing to answer our questions about the function of this area 2600 years ago. Her stratum five preserves evidence of both elite fine ware and everyday ware, with no sign of any habitation. I shall have a more extensive report next week.   View of Trench PC 23 from the south at the end of Week 6. Massive worked blocks in Trench PC 18.   Week 7: Michael Thomas discusses trenches in the Podere Funghi with Dr. Tony Tuck, director of excavations at Poggio Civitate. My week was a busy one. We had, in addition to the frenzied work of the last week, numerous visitors and activities. At the end of last week, Professors Erik Nielsen and Tony Tuck, and Jamison Miller from Murlo visited the site and magazzino. The visit was associated with Jamison's bipod photography in the Podere Funghi, an experiment that has us excited about the potential of "aerial" photography (see Bipod Photography). Sunday afternoon, some of the staff traveled to the Etruscan Foundation meetings at Spanocchia (just south of Siena). Monday we were visited by Professor Stephan Steingräber, and Tuesday by Professor Patricia Lulof (who helped us backfill). All of this activity was framed by several early 5:30 AM visits to the site for photography. Jamison Miller, Tony Tuck, Robert Vander Poppen and Robert Belanger using the bi-pod for "aerial" photography in the Podere Funghi trenches. Once again, it seems that a seven-week season is not enough time. Despite the urge to continue, I could not be happier about the success of this year's campaign. We have had an amazingly efficient crew; both the field staff and field school students have put forth a monumental effort during the waning days of excavation and backfill. As I write this report we have backfilled all of the trenches, broken down the pottery shed, and started the slow process of breaking down our magazzino. The entire crew of students and staff worked together to backfill Trenches PF 5, 6, and 7. The successes of our excavation seasons are usually a reflection of our trench crews. The field supervisors and their assistants are the hardest working people on the mountain. They have to excavate, record data, teach, and manage while on the hill. Their job, however, rarely ends with our descent from Poggio Colla in the afternoon. Many times they roll into dinner still wearing their excavation clothes, an indicator of about 14 hours straight of work that runs from a 6 AM breakfast to an 8 PM dinner. I therefore must thank both the Field Supervisors and the Assistant Field Supervisors for their relentless effort; without them, we could not do what we do. I must also thank our magazzino staff for a job very well done; they have worked similarly ruthless hours and produced amazing work. I must thank, and congratulate, our field school students for their unrivaled effort; they were truly a pleasure to work with. 2001 Operations Manager Kevin Beard and Housing Manager Krista Farber. Thanks also must go out to Kevin Beard our site operations manager, and Krista Farber, who stepped in as house manager. I have a special thanks to Jess Galloway, the site architect, who patiently endured my own bumbling journey into the world of Total Station operation. He was however, often compensated by my forays into Acacia thickets on steep hills as I ventured off the North slope of the site to reestablish grid lines. I often heard Jess snickering as I cursed thorns or slipped off a steep slope. Finally, I wish to thank Kathy Windrow for this website; she has produced what we believe is the most spectacular website of any excavation. Michael Thomas (left) assists Jess Galloway in surveying points in a curved row of stones in the southwest corner of PC 18. Web master Kathy Windrow in the Podere Funghi. Now that I have the thanks out of the way, I can focus on what we have found and how it has enhanced, or perhaps changed, the way that we think about this site. The most profound evidence, in my mind, is what has come up in Trenches PC 19, 22, and 23. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the scarp between Trenches 19 and 23, after it was cleaned up, revealed what seems to be a distinct floor level associated with our building. The scarp profile shows a clear line between a layer of mud brick and the stratum below. This is a line that we have missed in the past because of the lack of a great concentration of mud brick. We have associated both deposits in the past as the floor packing for the phase III building, a packing made up of the destruction debris of phase II. Now, with the evidence of two different deposits, a floor with wall collapse above, we may have to rethink the chronology of our monumental building. I am more inclined at this point to associate the floor level with the phase III building, and thus, the wall collapse, with the destruction of that building. This makes sense for a number of reasons. First of all, at the SW corner of the building, we have evidence of phase II construction (underneath the phase III wall) that is lower than the floor level (Etruscan architecture generally utilizes floors recessed below the foundation level because of the vulnerability of pisé to water). Equally problematic is the relative height of the mud brick to the phase III walls in the NW locus of Trench PC 23, part of the same wall fall that extends all the way to Trench PC 22. Here, this mud brick is actually higher than areas of the phase III foundations, a scenario that does not make sense if that brick was part of packing for the phase III floor. Finally, the lack of any foundation trench for the phase III walls, something that has perplexed us from the beginning, may be best explained if we consider that the floor stratum's deposit post-dates the construction of the walls. Scarp between Trenches PC 19 and 22 showing floor level. Yet, as I mentioned last week, these are issues that force us to reevaluate our position; it is still much too early to change our chronology. We still have evidence that makes it difficult to assign the last destruction rubble to the phase III building, such as the lack of a roof for this building. As frustrating as this may seem, it is, in my mind, refreshing to have to re-check our evidence. This prevents us, I think, from excavating and reconstructing scenarios based on preconceived notions. Southwest corner of building preserving evidence of Phase II and Phase III construction. As far as our other trenches, we have raised as many questions as we have answered. In Trench PC 18, it seems that the pile of rubble that first seemed like a wall, is likely debris from the quarrying off a nearby sandstone face. Yet, if that is the case, why do we have, mixed in with this rubble, glass beads and bucchero associated with elites? In the Podere Funghi, we have securely associated the structure in Trenches PF 5, 6, and 7 with a pottery production area. I am not ruling out the possibility that we will find even more kilns next year as we continue to uncover these foundations. If this site is a production area, then we have yet to find the associated habitation area? We had hoped that Trench PF 8 would discover evidence of a habitation when Frank Vento's GPR discovered what seemed to be walls in the SE corner of the Podere Funghi. Unfortunately we discovered evidence of early 20th century vineyard trenches packed with fieldstones. Now I have a year to ponder all of this. Justin Winkler and Michael Thomas debate stratigraphy and walls in Trench PC 22.