In the Land of the Sibyl - Monmouth College

Uncovering History One Stratum at a Time
by Rachel Cartwright
ments. One overlooked the main street
and the other the main plaza. The Atlantic
Ocean was a five-minute walk down the
road, which kept the temperature in the
60 and 70-degree range. We worked from
8 a.m. until approximately 2 p.m. on the
weekdays doing fieldwork and then from 5
p.m. to 6 p.m. in the lab. We took a bus to
the site, which was very interesting when
it went off-roading up the hill where the
site was located. The bus would park near
the bottom and we hiked halfway up to a
shed where our equipment was stored. We
would then continue to the top of the hill
to the actual site.
For the first week and a half, I worked
on surveying the site with a TDS (tripod
data system) machine. I enjoyed doing the
This summer, thanks to Eta Sigma Phi’s
Scholarship for Fieldwork in Classical
Archaeology, I was able to discover history.
I participated in the Iberian Archaeology
Program: The Bagunte Project, which is
located in Bagunte, Portugal. Dr. Mariah
Wade led the project from The University
of Texas at Austin. There were twelve students
working at the site, myself included,
and three supervisors. The site was of the
castro culture and the history of the site
spanned from the Iron Age to the Roman
era of habitation.
We flew into the airport in Porto,
Portugal and traveled to Vila do Conde
where we stayed in two separate apartsurvey
work, unless of course I had to hold
the rod, which I found very difficult to hold
still especially with the winds that blew
on the top of the hill we were working on.
My first trench was located halfway up the
hill. There is what is hoped to be a fallen
fortification wall in the area surrounding
the trench. The next trench was at the top
of the hill where we found what we think
was a house. The building contained pieces
of slag, which we considered evidence
of metallurgy in the house. There were
two shards of glass found, a large number
of pottery sherds, and two quern stones.
Personally, I found an iron nail, a roman
tile, and many pottery sherds. I drew
several maps of our trenches both of the
walls, to show the stratigraphic layers, and
The Church and Stairway at Bom Jesus
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