Dr. Mark Schuler

In 2016, after removing a blockage from Cardo 3 North, we discovered what looked like the top of a monumental doorway in the west wall of the House of Tyche. As the floor on the opposite side of the wall was low enough, we resolved to open a probe in the street to find the threshold and thus understand more of the history of the house.

After just two days of work, the supposed doorway may not be a doorway at all.

The limestone blocks in the lower right of the picture, blocks on which the wall sits, interrupt the line of the right door jamb. They are at the same elevation as foundation blocks for the wall on the opposite side of the street.

If this interpretation is correct, the lintel stone and related pieces are in secondary use as wall stones and are not a doorway.

Such a surprise!

Scanning is essential to this study season. Today I completed all the scanning of the church and everything west, north, and south of it. The House of Tyche is the final scanning project.

In addition, this study season will open several probes. We opened the first today in Cardo 3 North, north of the apse and next to the blocked doorway in the west wall of the House of Tyche. We restricted our work today to the area south of a single line of limestone blocks that were part of a blockage of the small cardo when the complex was decommissioned. As these stones are floating, they will be removed.

Digging again will lead to more answers and possibly questions.

As I do more scanning — 108 scans so far — I marvel at the capability of the hardware while struggling with the challenges of the site. Heat continues to be a problem. If I scan in the early part of the day, I have harsh sun angles. If I scan later in the day, the heat can shut me down (the iPad actually) in about an half hour. I also wish I had worked more with the scanner in advance. To be effective in archaeology, the device needs an extendable pole for the tripod. These are just a few of the thing the field is teaching me.

Enjoy today’s scan of the structures southwest of the church…

Today, two projects were my focus. First of all, using my chart of walls, I went systematically through the site reviewing and noting the interrelationships of the walls. This work is essential as I build the final report on sequencing.

Secondly, and more visually exciting, I began the scanning of the church complex. Had a little trouble with heat shutting down the iPad, but I am quite happy with the result:

As one zooms in, the detail is quite excellent. The cloud still requires some cleaning and geo-referencing. But the initial product provides the hoped-for basic data..

I returned to Sussita to refine the scanning techniques. When dealing with large spaces, I am discovering that the scans must be closer together. The software could not auto-register the scans; but I was able to be much more successful manually. The results:

Back to the field tomorrow. This is exactly the kind of data I was hoping to gather.