Figure 64. Payday in the rain shelter of the House XIII great room. Ali Aqil and Bert de Vries distributing the weekly payroll, 5-11-2015. Photo by Muaffaq Hazza
Figure 28. While stones were being removed, another part of the team began removing the soil using buckets and ropes. The strategy was to remove the thinner layers from the edges where bedrock was higher to isolate the deeper and thicker layer in the middle. This and the following 20 photographs show the soil ‘melt’ away until the final remnant is removed from the deeper center. 20-10-2015
Figure 12. A huge quantity of stone was thrown into the reservoir in the past 20 years. Foreman Ali Aqil serves as scale, 19-9-2015.
Figure 33. NE corner 2. Full buckets ‘flew’ up rapidly, and mounds of soil accumulated. 1-11-2015.
Figure 3. North side and NW corner of reservoir in 1905 photograph. The “draughted masonry” is exposed where the ancient coat of thick plaster (called opus signinum by Butler) has fallen off. The “coping of flat and well fitted slabs” is visible on top of the wall in the segment on the right.
Figure 2. Butler 1913 Ill. 138. The Great Reservoir; View from the Southeast. Archaeological Archives, accessed November 25, 2015, Identifier # 925; http://vrc.princeton.edu/archives/items/show/10746.