What are archaeologists looking for anyway?
by jfriesen
This morning I went out to watch the dig for a while and I found out something REALLY important. The archaeologists are NOT looking for pots, statues, bones or inscriptions! They are looking for information and I have proof. In one of the trenches there was this pot sticking up from the ground. My first impulse would be to dig it right out so that I could see the whole pot…but not the archaeologists! They dig by stratas or layers. I waited and waited for them to get back to the pot, but an hour later they were still digging the same inch layer of the trench! They may find the top of something really curious, but they dig the whole layer and then the next and so on to see what is happening all around the item before coming to where the item can be removed!
One of the important things to find is a coin. When archaeologists find them they are happy. Coins have pictures and dates on them and you can tell a lot about the date of a location by what coins are found around it.
Here is a coin in the ground. I don’t think I would even recognize it and pick it up, but the archaeologists and workers at the dig know what they are looking for. When a coin is found it looks like this:
When a coin is found it is brought into the museum and a card is filled out with information about it and then it is given to a coin specialist. He cleans the coin and fills out more information about what type it is and when it was made. Here is the SAME coin after it is clean!
The other thing that can help to predict the date is the pottery that is found. Archaeologists have learned more and more about pottery and now it is even more helpful than coins in dating what they are working on. Even just shards of broken pottery can help because the materials and types of pots from different centuries were different.
Here are some other things that are found:
Walls 
Wells
Drains
All of these things tell archaeologits about the history of an area.
Sean asked me about houses. It was unclear to me whether he wanted to know about modern houses or ancient ones. They have not found remains of ancient houses at Corinth yet, but in a week or so I will be going to Ephesus, Turkey and there are remains of ancient houses there. Sean, let me know what you are interested in and I will write about it.
I haven’t had many questions lately (except from Susie who asks great ones!), so I hope that all of you are thinking and will send me questions by clicking on comment at the bottom.
I was asked if the site will stay up during the school year. It will stay up indefinitely and I hope that it continues to be useful!
I am ending the blog today with a special picture of Norma, the dig dog.
June 24th, 2006 at 3:02 am
You didn’t mention bones. Do the archaeologists find bones? If not, why not? Does Norma help or hinder the workers? She is very cute.
June 27th, 2006 at 9:06 am
The Dig Dog is popular here in California. Are there numbers dogs running in the streets in towns in Greece?
June 30th, 2006 at 1:33 am
Dig Dog is a Jack Russell. They were bred to hunt foxes. They were the dogs put down fox holes to scare the foxes out so they had to be small and brave. Norma is very good hubting rats. On site she is usually a hinderance because she likes to sleep in the shade and usually chooses exactly the spot one wants to dig. At breakfast time she goes to all the students and workmen to beg tidbits. After almost ten weeks excavation she is now quite fat. Norma likes bones and we have to keep a close eye on her when we are digging skeletons! She is also a great help because she has a great character and people find that having a dog around keeps them cherrful.