Sunday and Monday we were continuing with the coping of the wall of the apse. The work was more of the same, and we finished early each day because we ran out of mortar to work with. There really isn't much else to say about the work, and like I said I was pretty worn out after and didn't do much besides eat, sleep, and watch the World Cup.
Starting Tuesday we had some more interesting work involving a jackhammer. After the excavation of the site in the early seventies there was some rudimentary conservation work done. Back then, the go-to material was cement, which we now know is a big no-no. The conservation work they did was to put all the mosaics onto a cement floor, as well as putting a cement cover layer over most of the walls. Now we had to remove a lot of this cement, using a jackhammer. We took out part of the cement floor that was extra and didn't have any mosaic on it, in order to reconstruct part of an older wall that used to be there. Then we destroyed the top of the eastern wall of the apse that had been reconstructed in the seventies using bad stone blocks and cement. Tuesday the entire day was spent hammering away at the cement. Unfortunately I didn't get to use the jackhammer this time, but there is still plenty of cement that needs to be removed, and maybe I will get to help with that. Part of preparing the wall for new stones involved removing dirt and other material that was beneath the cement, and that was my job. I was digging out the dirt and small stones that were in the wall, as well as removing the dirt at the broken end of the genizah inside the apse. It was basically like doing archaeology, complete with finding pottery.
Wednesday and Thursday we started reconstructing the wall that we took apart. The amount of material that we removed meant that we have to build two or three courses of stones within the wall, which requires several days in between laying each course down so the mortar can dry and harden. Yesterday and today we placed the edge stones as well as the first layer within the wall, and next week we will hopefully finish filling in the rest of the wall. We also rebuilt the side of the genizah that was missing.
If you may have forgotten, Thursday is the last day of the work week here, so I'm done with work for the week. Sunday and Monday are also vacation days for the work team, so I won't be resuming work until next Tuesday. If I do anything exciting then I will write another blog post, but if not then I will write again at the end of next week. Time to go watch Team USA crush (or at least tie) the Germans!
Oh I forgot to mention, I found this little guy in my kitchen when I got home!
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