Room 28 continued

 

We’ve had a busy two days in Room 28 at Pueblo Bonito!  We have excavated about 40-60 cm throughout the room.  The western 2/3 is filled with burned roofing material—beams and daub (the plaster capping on the ceilings that also served as the floor of upper stories).  The charred beams are very well preserved, so we are collecting them, although we do not know exactly where they came from (except Pueblo Bonito, of course).  The burned daub has impressions from the beams and we are also saving many of these fragments because they can tell us a lot about roofing. 

Surprisingly, the eastern 1/3 of the room is completely different—it is filled with fine sand and large sandstone masonry blocks.  It is clear that a wall was built in this area at some time in the last 100 years and then toppled, probably on purpose, but left in the room.  We removed about 100 sandstone blocks and many more small chinking stones.  We do not know who built the wall or why, but it certainly has slowed our progress.  One thing about archaeology is that you can never be sure what you will find.

Partially excavated Level 3 showing abundance of wall fall on eastern end of Room 28.

In this photograph, you can see the charred material on the western part of the room (top of photo, taken looking west), and the wall fall on the east.  We had excavated part way through the level when this photograph was taken, so the entire room is not down to level yet.  This photograph is taken looking in the same direction as Pepper's historic photograph of the room in our first posting.  You can compare our progress by looking for the two white rocks on the western wall of his photo, also seen here near the southern corner of the wall.  We have a long way to go!

The northern wall of the room has bowed inward since George Pepper excavated here—this is clear from the historic photographs of the room.  So today the stabilization crew came and put a screw jack in place—this involves putting squares of plywood against the northern and southern walls and a large pipe in between that is threaded so that they can gradually push the plywood tightly against the walls.  This will prevent the walls from falling into the room and keep the crew safe.  It won’t make our photographs look very pretty though!

Stabilization crew putting the screw jack in place in Room 28

Our hardworking crew is out at the site from 7:15 to 3:30 daily.  Five are UNM graduate students: Leigh Cominiello, James Davenport, Scott Gunn, Jacque Kocer, and Jennie Sturm.  One is starting Amherst College in the Fall: Yvonne Green.  Some of them will be posting on this blog in the coming weeks.  We’ve talked to visitors from all over the world.