| Entry: | Another thought about the bin in the NE corner of the space (488). It’s possible that the bin was post the crawl-hole. I think I mentioned before that it’s possible to see where the wall has been worn away on both sides at the base of the crawl-hole, and then re-plastered. Presumably worn by people climbing through - (so traffic in both directions). The demolition material within the bin is lapping up against the re-plastering where the wear has taken place - which means that the back-filling of this bin took place after the use of the crawl-hole, which implies that the bin was constructed after the use of the crawl-hole. Certainly it disproves the idea that the bin was demolished to construct the crawl-hole, ( at least if I’m right about the wear ). So the crawl-hole went out of use ( as a crawl-hole at any rate ) during the use of this space....but no sign of a back-wall to the bin - no blocking of the crawl-hole - did they use it as access to the bin from space 163??
More infill has been taken out in Building 6 and we are down deepest in the SE corner, maybe 3 or 4 metres below ground level. Looking at this 2 evenings ago and thought that it had got to the point where very unsafe with the access still from this side and a crack visible in the wall above - although the crack doesn’t appear to have widened. Yesterday morning Lucy asking me about this, Shahina had said to me that she thought it was probably safe but after getting on site and looking at it again decided best if no-one worked in that particular corner. Then with Shahina some discussion about if not working in that corner whether we should be in the space at all - where to wear hard-hats etc. It was only the SE corner I feel that was particularly unsafe...but nobody on site is anymore qualified than anyone else to judge the safety or otherwise of the walls. During the afternoon this point emphasised by a section of wall collapsing on the north side of this space where Nurcan working - measuring approximately 0.40m by 0.40m by 0.20m. We had a discussion on site about the problems of the potentially collapsing walls - we had already thought that it might be a good idea to brace the wall in the SE corner, which is what happened. 2 poplar poles braced against the wall in the SE corner and running across the S. side of the space and braced against the opposite side. The other thing we discussed was how to prevent the walls eroding so quickly. The problem is that once exposed the mud-brick dries out very quickly and starts to crack and erode - this is visible usually within 24 hours. Kent advised us that to try and retain the moisture we should cover the walls in plastic sheeting. Part of the problem here has been the delay in getting a cover over the site. We didn’t expect that the walls would be exposed to direct sun for so long. Even so, we should have covered the walls sooner than this, we had covered walls with sacking but this just hasn’t done the job. Anyway have started to cover the walls with plastic sheeting today and will try and cover all the walls - and probably the walls in areas where we are not working also. In future seasons it would be better to cover with sheeting probably ( depending on what the conservators say ). I noticed this year how much the wall in the space where I was working last year had deteriorated over the winter.
Yesterday I excavated the last infill unit in space 173, (4440). Today I was mostly covering the walls with the plastic....Entered By: Richard Turnbull |
