Chronicle of an Excavation - Part One

No better way to resume our blog than with a diary of our current excavations at Gorham's Cave. In future posts we will describe this wonderful site and give updates on progress. Archaeological excavations may seem idyllic, the image of an archaeologist cleaning away with a brush to find an unecpected find being uppermost on many people's minds. But behind the brush and the trowel lies a lot of very hard work. Here in Gibraltar temperatures soar above 30C at midday and relative humidity levels may reach over 90% making work very hard indeed.

Today we start by describing how we get to the site. Located by the sea on the east side of the Rock of Gibraltar, Gorham's Cave requires a descent of over 350 steps down 60 metres of cliff. This is a hard job as we need to carry all our equipment with us...

The morning starts with the trek down. The blog will also allow us to introduce the team to you. Here Geraldine (Gibraltar Museum and co-director of the Gibraltar Caves Project) leads the group with Paco (co-director of the Gibraltar Caves Project since 1997) bringing up the rear of the column.

On reaching the base of the steps the team has to scarmble across a boulder field as the images below show...

Geraldine leading the line

Paco takes a break (above and below)

Jose Maria Gutierrez (Villamartin Museum) on the move

Reaching the cave along a spectacular landscape that dwarves the team...

The Cave! Its huge size makes us all feel insignificant

To get to the deep part of the cave where we are excavating requires access via this scaffold. At the top Richard Jennings (Site supervisor - from University College Cork, Ireland) is already getting started. Below, Paco is almost there!

Things don't always work out as planned! Having brought our generator down (quite a task through this landscape) it seemed that we did not have enough power to have all the lights working inside the cave. Stewart (Gibraltar Museum Operations Manager) repeated the trek with our electricians (above and below)

The problem was resolved but we took the decision to bring down a second generator this morning (below)!

A much needed drink of water after the effort and the two generators are down

Left to right: Jimbob (Oxford University), Marco (Seville University), Huw (Oxford University) and Antonio (Cadiz University)

...and if you think that's hard...

you then have to climb all the way up after a long day! (that's me by the way)