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WILLIAM CARAHER: That’s the height of Vigla. That’s the height of Kokkinokremnos over there – see the really prominent ridge? Our sight falls sort of between those two. On Kokkinokremnos there’s Late Bronze Age – a big impressive Late Bronze Age fortified site that people are a little bit confused about. And on top of Vigla there’s quite a bit of Classical. This is covering buildings, basically. And it’s almost all Late Roman. I mean eighty percent Late Roman.
This is Late Roman, but its interesting because look at this mortar. And this is not the same as the mortar that John Leonard was saying was like the Kopetra really fine grain stuff.
SCOTT MOORE: PKAP is a survey of the southern coast of Cyprus in the area of Pyla-Koutsopetria to examine the ramifications that trade, both long distance and local trade, would have had on the vicinity in the periods from – really my main interest was the Greek period through the Byzantine period – but we are trying to cover all periods now.
DAVID PETTEGREW: This is kind of a characteristic Late Roman tile which is found in large quantities at other Late Roman sites on the island, like Kopetra and Mulroney Petra has these things. And we find these all over the place here.
Right now we’re surveying a significant coastal Late Roman site and, in traditional historiography, the Late Roman period was a period of stagnation and decline. You know, the great decline of culture, life, politics, religion during the third and seventh centuries A.D.? So the world became something barbaric and medieval. And I think here we have a site that dates to these centuries, which is not barbaric. It’s not insignificant. And it’s obviously a very wealthy site with significant monumental and architectural remains.
WILLIAM CARAHER. This is gypsum. There’s no marble on the island and so they use this indigenous Cypriot marble, which is just called gypsum. And I don’t know if you’ve seen this in Mageto, but it’s just like a lament.
DAVID PETTEGREW: Last year we managed to survey nearly two-hundred grid squares in the course of two weeks and we have almost a complete data-set from which we can begin to analyze the data and to report on human activity and the nature of settlement and habitation and land use at this important Late Roman site.
NARRATOR: PKAP’s research method is to study the range for artifacts remaining on the surface. To do this they plot an invisible grid across the landscape, and then they search each square unit for finds.
WILLIAM CARAHER: See, ancient revetment!
NARRATOR: Units are measured outward from a single spot – or datum point – marked by a metal pipe, and located by a global positioning system in full view of the entire grid matrix.
WILLIAM CARAHER: The easiest thing is just to look in here. There should just be a pipe. Oh! Easy! We found it. Datums! Good.
DAVID PETTEGREW: The important purpose of going into the field yesterday was to clarify and correct a gridding problem, which we didn’t quite workout before the end of the 2004 season.
The grid appears to be incorrect.
And we simply misreported. The more points of reference that you use when establishing a grid, the greater potential for introducing error.
WILLIAM CARAHER: And the easiest way to fix this is by going and getting GPS points on it and just shifting it.
DAVID PETTEGREW: In affect, we were able to slide about seventeen units, which had been shot off the bad datum point. We were able to slide them to the northeast and fix the problem. This is a relatively minor problem, but it’s important to correct all your mistakes.
NARRATOR: It’s a good time to make corrections before moving on. At this point, the team is still assembling on Cyprus, with some members like Dr. Scott Moore and his student still on route and scheduled to land shortly.
WILLIAM CARAHER: Well that’s good news. Mike just talked to Dr. Fisher – Mr Fisher.
DAVID PETTEGREW: Okay.
WILLIAM CARAHER: – and the Larnaka and Paphos airports are closed indefinitely because of some big strike.
DAVID PETTEGREW: Oh my gosh.
SCOTT MOORE: The baggage handlers and other people went on strike and we were in flight. And so we had to turn around and land at Athens until the strike was settled.
DAVID PETTEGREW: Now they’ve shut down everything?
WILLIAM CARAHER: Yeah. …I’m at four meter accuracy.
DAVID PETTEGREW: We could send him through northern Cyprus.
WILLIAM CARAHER: Uh huh? Okay. Once again, Dave, on your project you can do stuff like that.
KATIE PETTEGREW: You can send him to Tel Aviv and then have him ferry over.
SCOTT MOORE: I’m sure in a year or two it will be a really great long story that I talk about at length, but it’s a minor bump in the way.
WILLIAM CARAHER: Provided that Scott does in fact get here before indefinitely, we’ll come out with a transit and we’ll start dropping our grid up that way. We’ll walk up that way.
MICHAEL FRONDA: I figure that I’m just burning now, like that’s just the reality. So what’s going to happen is that I’ll just go back and I’ll put on my t-shirt – put a lot of goo on it for the next two days before I go out again. The burn will start to fade, as long as it’s not a preposterous burn, and eventually it will just be tan.
DAVID PETTEGREW: Yup.
WILLIAM CARAHER: South of that thing we may want to drop another layer of --
DAVID PETTEGREW: -- Units.
WILLIAM CARAHER: -- Units.
DAVID PETTEGREW: -- Just to show that we’ve defined the order of the site.
WILLIAM CARAHER: Oh, I need water dude. You just changed t-shirts?
MICHAEL FRONDA: Yeah, to the long shirt – to long sleeves. See, you wear the other ones until your arms burn, and then you put these on; and pretty soon you’ll have a tan.
WILLIAM CARAHER: Uh? Good. Here they come! Yeah, Larnaka airport is open. Apparently being closed indefinitely meant until twelve-thirty.
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