On Monday, a film crew from the public television program Nova will be coming to film the Tel, in preparation for an upcoming segment on the abecedary.
As one might imagine, this is cause for more than a small amount of consternation, as square supervisors must set aside ambitions for more excavation and instead sweep their squares in preparation for the filming. Everything must be perfect, of course - even the Baulk Tags - labels which are nailed into the earth layers exposed at the edges of each square (the baulk) to indicate the Locus number they are associated with. Traditionally done with permanent marker on a piece of 2"x3" manila card stock, the dig director has decided that a more professional approach needs to be taken. So, each morning he calls me up from the field with a list of locus numbers, which I dutifully transcribe into 'Word Art' in Microsoft Word. The height, width, centering, and boldness of each must be 'just so', and then printed out on adhesive labels bought for the purpose.
We will all be relieved when the TV cameras go away and we can get back to the mundane business of archaeology.
2 comments:
Nova did show up today around 7 a.m., and for most of the morning there was a lot of traffic on the walkie-talkies, as Michael, Ron and Dan re-enacted the moment of discovery of the abecedary.
Not much excavating got done today, but perhaps we will have a solid week of excavating prior to having to shut down for final pictures.
Sherry and Vernon went to the site yesterday just to see it up close, and she exclaimed, "It looks like it's been manicured with fingernail clippers! I have hangnails that are rougher than the dirt out on that tel!!"
Thanks for the report on the day's excitement! I was wondering how it had gone! Sounds like you are all ready for the visit to be over, so more excavation can be done.
It is so ironic that this media event on the Big Find of a previous summer has prevented further excavations to take place that the volunteers could uncover another Great Find! I do hope that some substantial objects will be found in the last week of the dig.
Jeanne
Post a Comment