BONUS: Monday, June 18th
Today I worked at the Heister house, my boss's personal historic home. There, I screened dirt that was collected in order to gather any artifacts.
Hours: 8:30 am to 5:30 pm
Overall Working Hours: 9 hours
Tuesday, June 19th
Spent most of the day mapping the surface of level 4, which contained a ton of rocks. This took all morning and part of the time after lunch, but when the paperwork was finished, I quickly ripped out the rocks. PRAISE THE LORD, NO MORE ROCKS!!!
Hours: 8:30 am to 5:00 pm
Overall Working Hours: 8 hours 30 minutes
Wednesday, June 20th
Today I started excavating level 4. Excavating this level was very interesting because the change to level 5 was very instantaneous. I wasn't able to finish excavating level 4, but I got a large chunk of it done.
Hours: 8:30 am to 4:30 pm
Overall Working Hours: 8 hours
Thursday, June 21st
In the morning, the interns and I did a lot of work at various sites. First, we gave the windows at The Speaker's House a full coat of gloss paint. Then we did the same on the outer windows on the shed at Dewee's. Next we went to Henry's to work in the carriage house. Here, we first moved a whole bunch of architectural artifacts to the side of the left side of the carriage so that way we could bring shelves from the right side of the carriage house over for the architectural artifacts to be stacked on. This was cut short because we found a lot of bugs and a dead mouse and decided we needed gloves. Because there was very little time before lunch, we went to The Speaker's House and helped some volunteers who needed extra hours in cleaning artifacts (I was actually reconstructing some ceramics found at the Hiester house... [i might have been spelling this wrong the entire time, I only learned today that it is 'ie' not 'ei']). The interns and I then went back to Henry's to finish with the architectural artifacts. Finally, we went back to The Speaker's House to start the final coat of paint of the windows. I also collected a number of ceramic artifacts located here that came from the Hiester house in order to be put on display for an event later.
This night there was also a huge tour (100+ people) to be held at the Hiester house. Like I said, I curated a number of ceramic artifacts to be on exhibit. Additionally, I was in charge of this station, so I would provide information to the visitors about the archaeology. There was one woman, and sadly I didn't catch her name, who was extremely fascinated with the artifacts, but also told me of her history with archaeology and it was just so interesting.
Hours: 9:00 am to 4:30 pm & 6:00 pm to 9:30 pm
Overall Working Hours: 11 hours
Friday, June 22nd
Finished excavating level four, then mapped and took other relevant information on level 5. This level contained charcoal and a larger amount of ceramic artifacts.
Hours: 8:30 am to 4:00 pm
Overall Working Hours: 7 hours 30 minutes
Saturday, June 23rd
Continued excavating level 5 until we found some areas that had a reappearance of mortar-y soil. These areas were given a feature number. As well, the darn rocks returned...apparently I am a rock magnet.
Additionally, in the afternoon I gave a tour of the Henry Muhlenburg house to an older (adorable) couple and to my archaeology peers.
Hours: 8:30 am to 5:45 pm
Overall Working Hours: 9 hours 15 minutes