2004 TRENCH PC 20 Ivo van der Graaff, Field Supervisor Sarah Titus, Assistant Field Supervisor Week 3: Field Students: Nicole (CoCo) Berastequi Jeff Edwards Lindsey Lindley Volunteer: Fiametta Calosi The week started off with the assignment of the students to the various trenches. The work since then has only picked up pace as the various participants are starting to develop an attachment to the strip of dirt they have been assigned too and gain more confidence in their archaeological skills. View of Trench PC 20 from the south. The workload in our trench has been particularly intense but everyone is grouping together as a team and dealing with the situations as they present themselves. In fact our efforts in the trench are now concentrating on the two most promising loci of the trench, and the so called; black layer. These two portions of the trench present themselves with a thick dark layer of earth associated to the earliest destruction event of our site. This stratum is known as the fill of our portion of the arx to expand the site in preparation for the second phase of occupation. The finds we make in this area are therefore among the earliest we have on our dig and comprise mostly of broken and scattered sherds and pieces of pottery, which arouse much interest among us due to their nature. In fact most of the ceramic we deal with in this area is called Bucchero, which is known to be of high quality and is therefore associated to high standards of living. Furthermore this type is unique to the Etruscans whom seem to be the sole producers of it, especially during the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. Of course this set of circumstances only enhances our interest in the various wares we find inside this matrix. However the nature of the stratum does mean that all of us daily come off the hill looking like a group of coalminers, much to the amusement to everyone around us. Jeff Edwards and Fiametta Calosi excavating in the black layer of PC 20. Other work in the trench has concentrated to the northernmost edge. Here we have spent most of our time exposing the continuation of the series of Buttress walls extending from the northern terracing wall. In full agreement to my expectations it seems that these walls are continuing as an integral part of a fortification complex enveloping the whole site during the last occupation phase of our site. As we enter the fourth week of our excavation I am sure that we will start answering many important questions as the quality of our work increases thanks mainly to the enthusiastic participation of the students in project. CoCo Berastequi, Lindsey Lindley, and Sarah Titus triangulating points.   Ivo van der Graaff and Sarah Titus at work in their trench (view from west).   Lindsey Lindley rests after hauling buckets to CoCo Berastequi and Fiametta Calosi at the sifter.   Ivo van der Graaff spraying scarp with water to slow drying of soil.   Ivo van der Graaff drawing in his field notebook. Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 - Final Report Director, Gregory Warden gwarden@mail.smu.edu Director, Michael Thomas michael.thomas@tufts.edu While the team is in Italy during the summer field season, send e-mail to: mvap3@dada.it To email an individual on the team, enter the person's last name in the subject heading. Excavation house phone: 055-844-9834, or, when calling from the US: 011-39-55-844-9834. Introduction | 2004 Field Season | Poggio Colla Field School | What’s New | Staff | Students Site History | Directors' Diaries | Student Diaries | Excavation Friends | Facilities | Conservation | Surveys Robert Belanger | Katherine Blanchard | Josh Moran | Caitlin Vacanti | Ivo van der Graaff | Robert Vander Poppen QuickTime VR | Site Set-Up | Dig Daily Life | Excavation Process | Field Manual | Lectures | Season's End Archives | Finds | Research Projects | Publications | Bibliography | Mugello Area | Home