We spent an afternoon in the field today walking across the landscape and deciding where our 2009 trenches might be and what needs to happen before we begin to excavate in earnest. The area of Vigla has been removed from cultivation now based in part on the results of our fieldwork. While I am not entirely sure whether plowing was particularly destructive to the architecture below the surface of the hill, the end to the plowing combined with the particularly wet winter has let the local vegetation take over. The entire ridge is completely overgrown with a dense tangle of prickly weeds. (Compare it now to photos from last year)
Paul Ferderer, a UND graduate student in history, got his first taste of the field. Brandon Olson a UND M.A. in history alumnus, joined us in the field from Penn State, just hours after having arrived in Cyprus.
We are going to have to get these weeds taken back before we let our team of undergraduates loose on the hill. The risk of both snakes and fires sweeping through the dried weeds is too great right now.
In the meantime, however, we’ll leave Vigla to under the watchful eye of its natural guardians:
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