Apollonia Arsuf Day 5

Week one is finally out of the way and area L is closed until the Monday. We've managed to remove about 1.5 metres of loose rubble and layers of sand from the north east quadrant. All the pottery is of early Arabic and Byzantine origins but we seem to be having a lack of crusader sherds at the lower locus.

I've decided to close this quadrant and concentrate efforts on the remaining areas of the square. The north west quadrant remains difficult and has compacted layers of plaster along with rubble from parts of a robbed out wall. The area includes a solid plaster wall which changes direction by 80 degrees and seems to carry on to another locus. The central area of the trench has finally been seived and the layers of burning and dark soil has now been removed ready for excavating the lower locus on Monday.

Work has now begun in the south west quadrant and already there is alot of pottery sherds and amphora handles appearing in the surface layers. The slanted plaster wall has now been identified as the early Arabic fortifications, built prior to the crusader moat and is causing some excitement. The wall indicates where the arabic curtain wall turns and shows that the crusaders made use of existing fortifications by following the allignment and usage of some of the existing defences. In the evening, we returned to apollonia for a live jazz concert in the castle and watched the sun set over the battlements and hide behind the horizon of the med.