We are the Grovenians, we come in peace.

The third week of excavation began with the express intention of 'plowing' through the plow zone and finally getting rid of it. I was feeling really good on Monday, thanks mainly due to the weekend, and was ready to work really hard. However, as soon as we got on site I was approached by the Dig Director and instructed to pack up my things and move over to a new trench down in the Olive Grove. I had mixed feelings about this turn of events as I was really enjoying working with Dave, but when the Dig Director tells you to do something you simply dont question it. The reasons they decided to move me seem to be the fact that they were lacking a strong digger within the area, and mostly because the research project I have decided to undertake while I am here deals with the time period that the Olive Grove seems to directly focus on.

This trench is one of the more exciting trenches on site. In 2006 they uncovered incredibly good quality pottery from the same time period as the shaft graves at Mycenae which is very rare to have in a settlement context. Controversially they also seem to have some evidence for the largest and earliest ship in Bronze Age Greece within this area. it is an incredibly rich depost that hopefulyl will yield many fantastic finds throughout the season. Unfortunately the trench is located very much away from the central excavation area. As a result we are somewhat segregated and it feels most of the time like we are a completely seperate group. We prefer to be referred to as the 'Grovenians'.

Upon my arrival at the trench I discovered that some backfill still needed to be removed in this area. With much moaning, groaning and sweating this was swiftly removed and we were soon ready to break ground in the new trench. I cant get over the excitement that comes wiht the first swing of the pickaxe. It is truly fantastic. I suppose its the little things that make something memorable. Excavation continued throughout the week with very few significant finds as we were once again moving through the plow zone. Some interesting things uncovered were a piece of a lead bracket, a loom weight and, very commonly, some extremely high quality pottery. On the Wednesday, we decided to work ridiculously hard and do a 50 cm pass throughout the trench to try and get past the plow zone. This we accomplished much to the amazement of the rest of the crew, and in doing so we broke a record for the most amount of soil moved within a single day (233 20L zambelies to be precise. You can work that out in your own time :p). This was not to the detriment of accuracy, as we still managed to pick out about 7 pails of pottery. Needless to say I loved the work, but my body was absolutely destroyed for the rest of the week. At the end of this 50cm pass we uncovered a large mudbrick melt surface that seemed to extend across the entire trench. This slowed down our excavation substantially as we concentrated on tracing the surface. Many very large pieces of pottery were revealed within this melt layer so we think that this was perhaps used as some sort of surface.

On the Thursday night of the week it was the 21st birthday of one of the trench assistants (Tyler). We all went out to celebrate and had an absolutely fantastic night out. It made fridays excavation incredibly interesting as everyone was moving at about half pace. I made the silly decision of trying to work through any remnants of a hangover, and while this resulted in me working probably harder than normal, it also resulted in me being too tired to keep my eyes open at dinner. Sleep was goooood.

The weekend consisted of a field trip to the large island of Eubea just to the NE of us. The crossing was pretty awesome, as the island is only a few hundred meters off the mainland. We went to the site of Lefkhandi, Eretria and Chalkis where we saw a canal that was only about 20m wide seperating the mainland from the island. I was not VERY interested in the sites but still had a good time. Saturday evening was completely out of control as it turned out to be the dig directors birthday. Considering he knows almsot the entire town personally there was a big party planned down by the beach bar. At some point in the night, huge watermelons were brought out that had had their centres semi-liquified and some concoction of alcohol poured inside them. This juice was then ladled out into shot glasses and systematically destroyed by the entire bar. It was a lot of fun and despite the temptation of hollowing out the empty watemelon and fashioning a helmet, ended up being completely harmless. It was an incredibly late night and we only ended up getting to bed at around 6am. Thankfully the next day was a free day and we could sleep it off without much trouble.

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PS> I am having computer problems still but should be sorted out by this week. Photos will then be forthcoming. Apologies.