Duuuuude! I feel like Indiana Jones!!!!

There are all these cool mysteries on my dig's site. The first, I believe I mentioned before. At the back of the site is this very odd structure, mostly underground, with an arched roof. The only opening apparent is a small angular window at the top. At some point, part of the roof was broken, probably causing the structure to be filled with all the dirt, rocks, and rubble that it is now full of. We have no idea what the structure could be for. It appears at first, due to the shape of the roof, that it was a storage facility for grain or the like. The problem with this hypothesis is that it's underground and only has one small window. Another suggestion was that it was for water storage and the window allowed the rainwater in... the problem is that it's shaped wrong. The wider side is inside, like a backwards funnel. What makes this all the more interesting is that some man, about 50-100 years ago (I forget how long), wrote about such a structure in a similar location which had a mosaic floor. It is likely that before the roof caved in, it was not filled with rubble. Perhaps he visited it while it was still intact, gaining enterence through the small window, and saw the floor. Numerous squares of tessura have been found, which are used for making mosaics, which would support this. However, many are not perfectly shaped, suggesting that they were never part of a mosaic. Unfortunately, this mystery will have to wait. In order to dig there, we would need to build a support of the ceiling so that it doesn't collapse. We can't afford to do that. Oh well.

The other mystery is even cooler! And THIS is why I feel like Indiana Jones. Next to the cistern, there is this weird rock gorge filled with dirt. We dug down a little and saw tool marks confirming that it had been dug or at least widened by man. The excavation a few years ago dug down to the marks but no deeper. They concluded it was probably a well. We've been digging a lot deeper. The shape of the opening, according to some of the field archaeologists, makes it look like a tomb, probably Etrustcan. We've been digging like mad and hoping to find something soon. Either way, it's super exciting!

Mostly, I've been digging in this area of ground next to the cistern. One of the other volunteer/students, Morgan, thinks that it was the kitchen. This is supported by the fact that we've found a good deal of pieces of pots and other cooking implements as well as animal bones, some charred by cooking. I found a bunch of animal teeth, which they think were from a boar. Morgan found a bone which had tool marks on it, which means that the bones weren't from an animal that had naturally died in the ruins, but from an animal that was probably consumed by humans. Under the first layer, we found the remains of a floor and many pieces of glazed floor tile from the Medieval period. This suggests that after the Romans, it was used during the Medieval period. The next layer down is likely the start of the Roman ruins, possibly the layer of abandonment.

Every time we dig, we find tons of pottery and other cool things. After a while, it seems like just another unimportant pottery sherd. But I get excited every time I find something. Even the 1000th pottery sherd is a piece of something that was used by the Romans thousands of years ago and probably hasn't been picked up by human hands for hundreds or thousands of years before I pick it up. It's so cool. This is the kind of stuff you see in museums and textbooks, and I get to hold it in my HANDS! It's amazing.

Unfortunately, the work is rather physical and majorly uncomfortable. Being on your knees all day long on pointy rocks (sitting compacts the soil) and scraping away with a trowl is very hard on the body. My tendenitis is acting up, but it'll be fine soon. Morgan was asking our 'boss' Carolina if archaeologists needed to worry about tendenitis and carpel tunnel. Carolina said yes, she, as do many archaeologists, has tendenitis. I joked that I don't need to worry about getting tendonitis because I already have it! (It's a lifelong ailment, but doesn't have much permanent damage, it just hurts).

Other than that, everything is going so well. I get along with everyone, and I am so excited about the work we're doing. Time moves quickly because every day is so much fun! Tomorrow we're going to see Napoleon's villas on Elba Island. Exciting!

Oh, and in case I didn't mention--- we live walking distance from a beautiful, perfect beach and the weather is sunny and breezy and not too hot EVERY SINGLE DAY!