Then there is the matter of earth disposal.
In Anatolia, the gang, which supports the packmen, consists partly of men with
long shovels, which can be used if necessary for throwing earth up from an
excavation to a remarkable height; and partly of men with wheelbarrows or
working a Decauville railway.
In Iraq, the earth used to be carried away
in straw baskets, which were filled by a shovel man attendant on the wall
tracer. However, today it is done much more economically with a kind of bag of
coarse material, looped at one end round the neck and thrown over the shoulder.
There are many other methods, including
donkeys with pannier baskets in Syria, or even small “kamyons” which are used
by the French in Asia Minor. The economy of an excavation depends on such
devices, but its effectiveness depends entirely upon the skilled digger,
whether he be a trained local artisan or the archaeologist himself.
Egypt and Iraq
To turn then to the actual process of wall
tracing: first, a wall face must be located, and this is done by scraping the
surface of the ground vehemently. With a dragging tool of the hoe type, such as
is used either in Egypt and Iraq, or with a shovel as is more usually done
elsewhere, until the loose soil is removed. Under certain circumstances, the
actual pattern of the brickwork then appears, but more often one can see a
difference in texture and coloring between the wall and the filling; and a
clear line of mud plaster separates the two.
The packman then cuts down into the filling
until he has a hole in which he can squat, in order to approach the wall face
horizontally. The strokes of the pick or knife, with its point towards the
wall, then become increasingly delicate, until the last crust of filling flakes
away of its own accord, leaving the plaster almost undamaged. This process is
continued progressively from wall to wall until the chamber or compartment is
almost completely encircled, leaving what modern builders call a “dumpling” of
filling in the center.
The trench thus created will, if possible,
have penetrated only to within six inches or so of the original pavement level
and the “dumpling” will now also be removed down to this level. The last few
inches of filling, in which objects are likely to be found lying upon the
pavement, is finally removed by the most skilled workers, using the more
sensitive knife rather than a pick. All objects are of course preserved in
their exact setting for photography and recording.
travel for beauty 