At long last! Known as the "Hospitality" Grid for the sublime tunes that echo through the grid as well as the coffee brewed every morning at 8:00, Grid 51 is, at long last, ready to be presented to the world. So, without further ado, some pictures.
Not convinced that Cafe 51 existed? The same can be said of some of their volunteers too. I imagine a conversation that went along these lines...
"Uh huh."
"Really, it's right here."
"Uh huh."
"I'm serious, it's right here!" (Picture Larry gesturing with vigor.)
Here are Kate and Sarah pondering the vast mysteries of Grid 51's stratigraphy and, I think it is fair to say, this grid has some of the most dense stratigraphy on site.
Here, a consultation about one of Grid 51's most interesting finds of the season.
This season Grid 51 is dealing with everything from Crusader/Islamic (mostly Islamic) to Byzantine, Roman and Hellenistic. They know where 604 BCE is and just this week they located the 11th century!
That interesting find? You can see it here. The current understanding is that it is a Byzantine period wine press.
Can anyone say BAR cover?
And now for some volunteers...
Most of the time you can see smiles on the faces of Grid 51 volunteers -- you'll never hear them admit it gets so hot their eyeballs sweat! (But they do!)
At least they manage to look cool through it all!
One final note about today, the end of our first three weeks. Many of our volunteers are "part-timers," here for either the first three or last three weeks of the season. Tonight (or tomorrow morning depending on how you look at it) those here for the first half of the season head home. A big "THANKS" to everyone who joined us in excavating! We can't do it without the volunteers. Really, cleaning up after the mechanical equipement takes large numbers of minions! In all seriousness,the vast majorityof our work is manual labor and for that we welcome anyone who wants to be part of the team. All of our volunteers have worked hard this summer and we thank them for their time and efforts, their willingness to engage in seeminly ridiculous tasks such as sweeping the dirt (so their supervisors can see it better) and their enthusiasm.
Bon voyage.