In looking at the calendar, Bill and I leave Polis for Larnaka on the morning of Wednesday the 26th since I fly back to the US on the 27th. So, since I will be taking a research trip to Nicosia on Friday, that leaves us only 6 more work days. This means that we are in the danger zone. We have to be careful with our work plan so that we do not forget to get something critical finished (like an important excavation pass analyzed), nor do we want to be running around frantically next Tuesday trying to accomplish everything – the voice of experience says that this leads to disaster. This means prioritizing tasks and estimating realistically how long these tasks will take – since they almost always take longer than expected.
On the ceramic front, we are going back through the pottery I have analyzed over the last three seasons and trying to refine my ceramic identifications if possible, looking for comparanda, and choosing pieces for inclusion in a catalog for an article on the basilica. This has been a little nerve racking for me. As Brandon said to me this morning – it is a no-win situation since if your first identification is correct, you are just doing your job, but if you find you need to change your identification in some way, then you blew it. In our work on dating the construction of the basilica, we have been focusing on the context pottery that was collected during the excavation, and this are small sherds. It was only in the last day or so that I tookthe opportunity to look at the ceramics that were pulled at the time of excavation because they were more complete, or appeared especially diagnostic. After dealing with thousands of small, broken sherds, these pieces are fun to look at because they look so nice. The only drawback to looking at the ESA plate Brandon is examining in the picture was the dead mouse in the box.
RSM
Ancient History Ramblings 