The past two days have been full of new discoveries. While the rest of my team has continued to move toward the gate of the city while uncovering the street, I have been clearing out our water hole. The opening of the hole is about two feet by two feet. I spent a couple hours yesterday and most of today digging straight down to the bottom. It did not take me long to find that the hole leads to the main water channel of the city. We were aware that there was some kind of water system under the street, both because we can see stone water pipes at the gate that go underground and because the right side of the street all the way down the Decumanus is in bad condition, since it caved into the hollow tunnel during the earthquake. It was especially exciting to find the tunnel because it is still mostly hollow. There is a layer of dirt on the bottom of it, but it is possible to see quite a ways down it. Today I dug a lot further and was able to see that on the other side (the side closest to the gate) there is a very nice circular stone water pipe that is still in place. There are also two smaller holes on one side that cause water to flow perpendicular to the street, since, in the words of my supervisor, "something on that side of the street must have needed water." The two holes are adjacent to each other, and they actually link if you reach back far enough. I cleaned out the small holes with a screwdriver, since no other tool would fit. I used a trowel a lot to break up dirt and scrape it into a dust pan to put into buckets. The brush came in handy as well, especially when I reached the stone pavement floor and needed to clean off all the dirt still remaining on it. It got very dusty very quickly though! The floor of the tunnel is about four feet deep. Although it gets wider as it gets deeper, it was a tough squeeze at times to get dirt out of it. I finally got to a point this morning where I could actually sit down in it, which was much more comfortable. :) We put an iron grate over the top of the hole so no one will fall into it. It was very neat to sit inside and clean an ancient water system!

My group also found a stone hinge to a door today. It is a stone about eight inches by eight inches, and it has a hole through one of the sides of it. It looks quite interesting. Our tractor needs a new part, so we had to stop digging a little early today. We are still pretty far away from the gate. I hope we get there before the end of the dig! We continue to think that we have found a side street because the Roman walls form corners once in a while, but we have not found one yet. My supervisor says that they probably lead to structures along the street, since the pavement does not continue past the main street (like it would if there was a side street). 

One of the men from Spain that was in my group on the South Wall for the first two days joined us on the street yesterday. Another member of my first group joined us as well, since she was working on the graves and has finished her excavations there. She is originally from Argentina, so my Spanish is improving greatly. :) We are having a really good time working together.

We had a really good week! Hopefully we will be at the gate by this time next week! :)