This morning, I knew I was in for something different. Having requested not to use a pickax while my body recovered from the work, I was sent to the pottery cleaning and marking. It was a lot of fun but still hard work.
Here's my supposition... on a dig, there is nothing but hard work. You can't escape and really, I didn't want to.
Here's the deal with pottery marking. There are tons and tons of shards that have been found. Approx 300 BAGS of them at this point in the dig. All of those have to be washed and scrubbed, then marked. If they are edge pieces, like the lip of a jug or bowl or handle or spout... aka recognizable pieces, every single one has to be marked. If they are just random pieces of pottery, all of them above a certain size have to be marked. In this case, anything bigger than three of my thumbs... I don't actually have three thumbs therefore this is just an estimate.
Here comes the challenge (other than writing tiny)... You aren't using a sharpie to mark them... you are using a fountain pen and ink well (in this situation, the ink well is a bottle cap). I know a fountain pen sounds romantic but there very little control for a novice on the flow of ink... and you have to write really tiny. As the day progressed, my writing got more consistent and smaller. Thank goodness! Because one of the girls hasn't been feeling well and she was doing the tiny parts, the rim parts, and she had to go rest so I had to finish the tiny parts... yeah... For this work, you are hunched over a piece of pottery, trying to keep your hands steady. The bonus of this work was I had to stop to stretch my hand and arm and back frequently so I got a bunch of pictures. AND I got to go see the synagogue today. What a real thrill to walk down the main street from 1900 years ago! Truly amazing! The intact mosaics on the floor are incredible and you can see the plaster and paint (frescos) on the some of the walls. As they try to understand more about this synagogue, it will be facinating to watch.And here is another sunrise... a nice progression through the morning... for you!(To see all my pictures, go to THDpr Flickr)
Here's my supposition... on a dig, there is nothing but hard work. You can't escape and really, I didn't want to.
Here's the deal with pottery marking. There are tons and tons of shards that have been found. Approx 300 BAGS of them at this point in the dig. All of those have to be washed and scrubbed, then marked. If they are edge pieces, like the lip of a jug or bowl or handle or spout... aka recognizable pieces, every single one has to be marked. If they are just random pieces of pottery, all of them above a certain size have to be marked. In this case, anything bigger than three of my thumbs... I don't actually have three thumbs therefore this is just an estimate.
Here comes the challenge (other than writing tiny)... You aren't using a sharpie to mark them... you are using a fountain pen and ink well (in this situation, the ink well is a bottle cap). I know a fountain pen sounds romantic but there very little control for a novice on the flow of ink... and you have to write really tiny. As the day progressed, my writing got more consistent and smaller. Thank goodness! Because one of the girls hasn't been feeling well and she was doing the tiny parts, the rim parts, and she had to go rest so I had to finish the tiny parts... yeah... For this work, you are hunched over a piece of pottery, trying to keep your hands steady. The bonus of this work was I had to stop to stretch my hand and arm and back frequently so I got a bunch of pictures. AND I got to go see the synagogue today. What a real thrill to walk down the main street from 1900 years ago! Truly amazing! The intact mosaics on the floor are incredible and you can see the plaster and paint (frescos) on the some of the walls. As they try to understand more about this synagogue, it will be facinating to watch.And here is another sunrise... a nice progression through the morning... for you!(To see all my pictures, go to THDpr Flickr)