The primary jobs I focused on this week was wheelbarrowing and articulating the walls and corners on the second floor. While wheelbarrowing did provide many good lessons, such as the importance of working as a cohesive unit, the fact that many hands make light work, and the importance of comradery, I learned most through the working on articulating and removing roots on the left hand wall of the second layer of the building. Surprisingly, articulating a wall required much more patience, time, and effort than anticipated. The tools I used to articulate the wall were a dustpan, hand broom, bucket, and a trowel. Whereas with removing the roots which were protruding into the wall, the tools I used were a pickaxe, dustpan, bucket, and a trowel. The key question which my fellow interns and I were trying to find the answer to was whether or not the west-facing wall was an outer wall or an inner wall. The race between time and the articulation of the wall was crucial because it reveals whether or not the structure will continue in a westward direction, or if it was an outer wall which ended there. The reason why this is crucial is because it can reveal greatly about the landscape of this region of the site during antiquity. After learning from Professor Howe that the people who constructed house often worked around the natural slope of the landscape (as opposed to traditional modern structures that have the infrastructure to be able to easily level and clear massive plots of land) it is important to have that question answered because once that question is answered, it can lead to a whole new set of questions that can be asked.
The modern landscape of the acropolis has formed in such a way that to the left of the west wall there is a hill. This also contributes to the importance of determining whether or not it is an outer wall because if we do find it to be an outer wall, the question must be asked of whether or not this hill was here before. Through this past week of working on the articulation of the wall, it is my prediction that it is in fact an outer wall, however, the question of whether or not the hill was there during the time of its construction will require more time working, and will hopefully reveal itself in the coming weeks. The reason why I think the wall is an outer wall is because of the articulation of the corners. Since the corners of the two walls connected to it appeared to be constructed at the same time (due to the seamless edge you find on the corner, and the interlocking of the rocks on the wall) I believe that the west wall is in fact an outer wall, however, this prediction can only be confirmed with more time, effort, and excavating.