Although the majority of our time here in Cyprus has been spent at the dig site, our last week here has been spent entirely at Terra Ombra washing and documenting pottery. While washing pottery is far less physically grueling then the work we were doing at the dig site, we have very quickly discovered that after thousands of years of being buried the dirt covering the pottery sherds has largely calcified. Due to this calcification some of the sherds of pottery are very difficult to clean even after they have been left to soak in a mixture of lemon juice and water for over an hour. Despite the occasionally tedious nature of pottery washing I have mostly enjoyed my time at Terra Ombra as we get to hangout as a group and go out to eat at restaurants that we otherwise would likely not have discovered. The restaurants near Terra Ombra are specifically noteworthy due to their low prices and incredibly large portions. Our work at Terra Ombra has allowed me to begin to gain a wider grasp of the different types of pottery that were being created/used at our site and it has been very interesting to see the differences in the types of pottery we have been washing. Terra Ombra is also very interesting because the amount of pottery and sarcophagi that are stored there is absurd as they have multiple warehouses full of items that have been found at numerous dig sites across the island and I personally have never seen anything like it.

Tristan F.