Back to the Trenches
Wednesday I was back in the trench. We were getting nearer to connecting the West and North wall trenches, at which point we will begin to excavate the fresco and a waterway that was found up on the West wall trench. We uncovered a column base, which is really cool, photographed it and continued working our way along with pickax and shovel, pulling out some neat tesserae and even a few pieces of a small bowl that were still somewhat intact. It was rather hot on Wednesday, and I went through nine liters of water throughout the day. It made it almost unbearable to work, and some of us were actually thinking of jumping into the algae infested pools of the fountain we’ve been stealing water from (the water from the fountain is ok, but the pools are absolutely disgusting). After work, we who left our clothes behind went up to the Laundromat to pick them up, and I went to our dress rehearsal. We actually had a decent crowd following us around (50 people or so) through all of the scenes. Today I found out that I got to use smoke flares for the inferno scene which was awesome. If anyone is in Orvieto during this time next year, come see the show, or look it up online because I think they’re going to try and do it in Harlem later this summer. It’s really a great show. Tonight I got a ride from a local Sferacavallan (Sferracavallo is the name of the town our hotel is in) and we had a good conversation in broken Italian and broken English. I really like learning to speak this way! Yet another great day in the trench (I still can’t decide if I like excavating or surveying better) and another fun night doing theater in Orvieto. Ciao!
~Nick Quinn
a.k.a. Poncho!
Wednesday, June 14, 2006