A Second Archaeological Adventure

The island is located about an hour flight southeast of Barcelona. It has one main two‐lane road that crosses the island, connecting the largest town of about 30,000 people with the second largest town on the western end of about 20,000. There are several other villages and a number of coastal resorts scattered around the southern coast.

The work groups had a residence in the western town and traveled by van about 45 minutes over some very winding, narrow roads to the northern central coastal area called Sanisera. In Roman times it was an important port which provided a safe ship anchorage from the fierce winter winds of up to 100 mph that blow down from France. The Romans first established a military camp there, and after about 100 years of use, dismantled it in 45 BC and moved just a bit further and built a town. The town was abandoned in the 6th century, and nothing has ever been built on the site since then. This is a unique situation. In every other port‐town around the Mediterranean, there are modern cities on top of ancient ruins, making excavation impossible. Because of its windy location, and the silting of the harbor, later peoples used the other ports and didn't bother with this one. Fortunately for us, the ancient things are only under a few inches of overburden.

This is the final year for excavation in the military camp, and next year they will move over and work on the town. There should be a significant number of finds there.

We were assigned the unglamorous but needed job of excavating the perimeter ditch and finding whatever odds and ends had been thrown in it before it was filled up. My crew found lots of broken pieces of pottery storage jars called amphorae, some bronze nails and spikes, some pieces of lead, and a small amount of animal bones. We also had classes to begin to learn how to identify the origin of the pottery, to mark and catalogue the items that were to be kept, and to care for the site for the future.

It was physically demanding work, but the 16 persons enjoyed working together. The directing archaeologist has been working here for 10 years, and several grad students were there for a second season.

One of the fascinating things is meeting people from around the world. One man was an engineer who designed the tracking stations for the Apollo moon program. Another sold cancer‐fighting drugs in California. One grad student was from Germany; another from Portugal. Others were from all across the US and Canada.

In addition to work for two weeks at the dig, Pastor also spent a few days with daughter Katy. They flew to the Spanish city of Granada and visited the Alhambra, the great Moorish palaces built during the 12th 15th centuries. They are architectural wonders yet today.