Keeping on the Positive Pants

I have touched the dust of history.
There, I said it.

So that everyone is aware, that phrase was a requirement of mine to state on my blog while on this dig. It is a trite and cliché remark, sure but not at all far from the truth. In fact I would say that it is an understatement. Throughout the days under the merciless sun and heat in this partially humid climate you are more or less literally becoming apart of the dig.

It is true that I use my tools to dig deeper. But the deeper I pickaxe and shovel the more I start to resemble the pottery shards and rocks that I am unearthing. I have never continually experienced such intense physical labor.

The entire excavation site has to be viewed as if there is a grid on top of it. Thus each team essentially works in their designated squares. This makes it a lot easier to document any finds and keep the whole process organized. The square that my team (myself and three others) inhabits was basically at the surface level and located on the northwestern side of the church. Perhaps a foot of dirt had been peeled off the top of it, but nothing more. Some areas of the site are well below eight feet deep so there was no question as to how far my team and I would have to dig to arrive at the correct time period correlating with the rest of the site.

The first day we began working with unyielding energy to get past the layers of dirt riddled with broken glass and other modern garbage. Soon enough we ran into pottery shards and bits of decorative marble that was once inside the church. It is important to note here that according to Vasil, one of the project managers and field school instructors, the reason that the church was ushered into obscurity was that during the sixth century the numerous groups of people coming from the Steppes of Asia (Slavs, Avars, etc) absolutely decimated most of the places they came across when they migrated into/through the region. Another theory is deduced from the design and construction of the church. It seems to resemble nothing else found or known in the region. The location of the apse in conjunction with the orthodox tradition of it visibly facing the east tells us that whosever church this was, they were probably from Asia Minor or somewhere else from the near east where this practice was less common.

It would help a great deal if we knew the patron saint of the church. Within certain sects of Christianity, or certain regions, some saints were favored over other saints. For example, it would be rare to find a church dedicated to Saint John Chrysostom in the west because he is more popular with the orthodox east. For all that the excavation team knows at this point, it could have been a Monophysite place of worship or some other heretical sect from the time. That would at least explain its remoteness from the town. It would have been much safer to worship in the countryside.

There is one possible last way to deduce who the patron saint of the church might have been. In the eastern practice (and in the west as well, I believe), every saint is designated a day. When it came to constructing churches, the first day of setting the stones was always on that patron saint’s assigned day. Thus, if the patron saint of a church is Saint Andrew, construction would have began on Saint Andrew’s day with the church facing appropriately within the range of the rising eastern sun in particular to that day. So, using some complex astronomical/mathematical formula one could observe the day in which the sun rises exactly in line with the altar. Ultimately, with precaution, they could theorize as to what saint the said church might have been dedicated too.

Here's a view of the morning sun over the apse



Aside from that, over the centuries locals used the high quality stone of the church to build their own residences. Finally, the decorative marble more than likely fell victim during the Ottoman occupation of the Balkans. The marble was a key ingredient in a superior type of mortar that the Ottomans built with. Eventually, the church was picked apart and reclaimed by the jungle until the founding fathers of Bulgarian archaeology began to excavate the site during the beginning of the twentieth century.

Mom and dad you would not believe the amount of earth that I am moving on a daily basis. We are talking: lifting boulders 40cm wide; wheel barreling loads dirt up the steep hills to dispose of in the nearby woods, and sometimes stones from the battered walls; administering my pickaxe to loosen the dirt in hopes of finding the foundation or something else then shoveling it into the wheel barrel only to run the load back up the hill to empty… Pickaxe more. Shovel more. Drink water. It’s cloudy, so tolerable. Wheel barrel the excess dirt. Sun is out, now it is hotter than hell. Pickaxe more. Cut roots, oh those blasted roots! Dig deeper. Possible find - put it aside. Drink more water. Sweat Profusely. Shovel more. Ah nice! Is this marble from Prokonnesos or from Asia Minor? Rinse and repeat until you are just about ready to fall over. You had better believe that my muscles are in dire pain from soreness.

Though I must point out that the only thing that motivates me to work this hard is the potential of discovery on this excavation. This unique aspect of archaeology does not exist back home ☺

So I will go the extra mile

With my ‘positive pants’ on