Finishing up work at Qazi Gol.

The season is wrapping up quickly here and, I think it’s safe to say it was a success. Three weeks goes by very quickly in the field. We spent the last week working at the second site I told you about, now named Qazi Gol.

Gol means ‘pond’ or ‘lake’. You can see the outline of the site (light green line) and a light blue or aqua colored area in the center on this topographic map - that is the gol.

Topo plan of Qazi Gol. Blue is low elevation and white is high elevation.

One of the interesting things about this site is that the Gol is human-made. It is an old pit dug for soil or clay that has subsequently filled in over a long period of time. In fact, the white high elevation patch (white) next to it (near the label “Area 3”) is where they dumped all the soil that came out of the pit that wasn’t useful for making mudbricks.

It’s hard to see the elevation change. In this mid-morning photo I was able to use the shadows to highlight the depth of the pond which is about 4 m at its maximum now. We don’t know how deep it was originally excavated.

The date of the Gol’s digging also isn’t clear. It could be Neo-Assyrian, or it could be much later, even a late historic period. We need to come back for more work to figure that out.

Refeeq instructing Ali on how how to balance the FM-256 gradiometer. He is standing on a plastic box to raise the instrument as far as possible above the ground where subsurface interference can make it hard to balance. They are both magnet-free!

An important part of the program was the continued training of the staff at the Directorates in geophysical techniques. I’ve already got a few more archaeologists interested in coming out next year. We had a classroom day to go over some of the basic concepts, how to lay out a field project, and to demonstrate downloading and some data processing in a slightly cooler (and less windy!) place. On the next to last day of fieldwork, Rafeeq and Ali balanced the gradiometer and walked all the survey squares with the machine. I was just a helper — success.

The end of data collection at Qazi Gol on the last day of the fieldwork.

Report writing, data uploads, labeling photographs, packing the depot, saying goodbyes at the Directorates, packing, airports and airplanes. The next 24+ hours are the hard ones. I’ll take a hot, dusty field to Seat 24H any day, but it’s time to head home.