June 4: Work, Work, Work – Update 7

By Gary D. Myers

Alyson and Emily at Probe 1

Work continued at the Bronze Age gate, the wall room and MacAlister’s causeway. Before lunch, the causeway was clean enough for photographs and soon the team began cutting through the slabs of stone MacAlister used to cross the soupy area he encountered at the bottom step over 100 years. The team will dig three probe holes through the causeway in hopes of finding material undisturbed by MacAlister.

Traditional archaeology techniques will be used to insure any material found there can be used in dating the water system. One of the main goals of the dig is to find evidence to indicate when the water system was cut and who cut it.

Work also continued on probe 2 inside the cavern. Work on probe 1 was abandoned yesterday because the team encounter multiple layers of chalk about 2 meters into the probe. The probe 2 team also hit a significant layer of chalk (probably roof fall) much deeper into their probe, but dig leaders decided to cut through this layer of chalk in hopes of finding the floor.

Bronze Age Gate

The work area where our efforts are most visible is in the Bronze Age wall rooms. The conservation work is shaping up nicely. In a few days we should have good before and after photos to illustrate the progress. In the other areas, we have many really good starts. In the coming days we hope these good starts will lead to exciting finds. Stay tuned.