Reporting on her third week at Sant’ Omobono, Rome, Alison Telfer and the team continue to find new ways to manage the watery conditions that come hand-in-hand with working so close to the River Tiber…
If I do a quick comparison between the known depth of the Archaic temple, as revealed in the 1980s, and the level reached so far in our trench, D10, it suggests that there is less than half a metre to go before we reach the temple! The much anticipated borehole results will be revealed at some point next week, which should give a better idea of what lies beneath.
At the end of last week, the metal sheets that shore the sides of the trench were pushed down, for a second time, to keep pace with our current excavation level (now 3.5m-4m below street level). Meanwhile, it has been all hands to the pump. The water is now gushing steadily into the trench and consequently it has been getting harder to retrieve some of the smaller finds as we dig. So, at the beginning of the week we set up a separate area for wet sieving. This essentially means hosing each bucketful of soil that comes out of the trench. It’s has proved itself to be a successful system, and almost straightaway someone found a tiny blue glass bead.
