Day 2

It was a rough day. I spent the entire day balking, which involves laying a line down with nails and then pick axing, shoveling, hand axing, and finally troweling the dirt down so that it makes a clean cut wall of dirt (look at that excellent, straight work below!).  This is in preparation for the trenches that will follow in this excavation process (so that the hills of dirt won't collapse into the trench). 

Balked dirt wall (left)

Corner of balked walls (including robber's trench)

The second picture contains part of the "robber's trench" (darker colored dirt) where "robbers" - probably the Romans - would cut down into the earth next to wall structures and quarry (rob) the nicely cut stones to reuse in their own projects. The trench the robbers cut eventually fills in with dirt from that different era, hence the different color in the strata.  This is also why the "walls" of Bylazora are so small and there aren't really any piles of fallen rocks laying around - all of the stones were previously robbed.

Smaller stone foundation walls

We also had a big discovery today! The bulldozer came out to move dirt on the northwest part of the site, and it uncovered a wall! It had been theorized that there was a second tower to the right of the propylon (walkway structure) in addition to a first tower to the left of the propylon that signified two phases of city fortifications.  The discovery of this extra city wall may indicate a third phase.

Propylon

It started raining near the end of our day, but nothing too concerning.  I took the "short way" up and back today.  The short way involves climbing a slope with about a 60 degree angle. Yes, it is shorter. It is also killer. The view, however, can't be beat. Plus, I had a little time to enjoy waiting for everyone else to arrive.

View leaving Bylazora - SW corner

View looking up to Bylazora - "short way" is up the left slope