Recent comments in /f/history

Bentresh t1_j90229y wrote

Reply to comment by randathrowaway1211 in Discovery of 4,500-year-old palace in Iraq may hold key to ancient civilisation | Archaeology by JesseBricks

It’s just a very slow process. Every step has to be documented in careful detail (mapped, photographed, recorded, etc.), every bucket of dirt has to be sifted with a mesh screen for small finds, any architecture has to be articulated (i.e. the dirt between stones is removed carefully and slowly), and so on. It’s not uncommon to dig down only about 20-30 cm a day.

I've been working in the same 10x10 meter square for about a decade, and we haven't even gotten out of the Iron Age levels, with the Bronze Age and earlier levels still untouched. Multiply that square by 800-1000 and you get a sense of how long it takes to excavate the citadel of a standard mound (~8-10 hectares), to say nothing of the sprawling lower town!

Additionally, many excavations only run for a couple of months a year. Partly this is because of weather and seasonal rain patterns, but it’s also because archaeologists and hired diggers have other obligations during the rest of the year (typically teaching or museum work for archaeologists and farming/agriculture for local workers).

55