Overall, another good day for archaeology at the Old First Presbyterian Church site. The rain held off until mid-afternoon -- and we were only interrupted for about half an hour by a short but drenching downpour.

Today was a "transitional day" for us -- we shifted all of the crews to the northern part of the church in order to maximize our ability to work under our shelters during brief rainy periods. Also, before we open some additional excavation units to identify the southwestern and southeastern corners of the church foundation -- we need to confirm the northwest corner location. After we are certain of the location of the northwest corner trench (despite the missing foundation stones), we can then more precisely place excavations to locate our two remaining corners.

Once again, the rain caught me once again before I snapped a few digital photos for the web page, but the edited photo from yesterday shows the locations of our new investigations -- and where two crews continued work today. We opened the 2x2 meter unit marked "A" in the photo to see if the brick "pathway" feature continued to the east -- by the close of the day, it was already apparent that this feature either doesn't continue there or has been destroyed by later disturbances. This unit should also reveal some features relating to the entrance to the eastern gallery. Documents indicate the church had three entrances -- the main entry in the center, and two doors entering the galleries on the east and west sides of the church. In the area marked "C" in the photo, the crew continued to "dig" this area.

The 2x2 meter unit marked "B" in the photo was opened to follow what we believe is the belltower foundation and investigate the immediate interior of the church main entry door.

In the area marked "D" in the photo, the crew completed exposure of the cut limestone blocks of the foundation -- like the northwest corner, this section of the foundation is missing a large number of stones in the upper courses. However, there are three courses (or layers) of foundation stones below the surface of the church site -- in this section of foundation trench, at least one course of stone is intact (I'll include some photos on Thursday to better illustrate this).

In the 2x2 meter unit marked "E," it appears that the foundation stones for the entrance and belltower end -- although this will have to be confirmed in the next day or two. No sign of a "builders trench" or stones appeared today. However, a scatter of debris in this unit may represent a depression associated with the door into the west gallery. Again, further investigations this week will hopefully tell the tale.

On the northwest corner, the crew confirmed today that all of the corner foundation stones have been removed sometime in the distant or recent past. They will start excavations to the south of the "corner" on Thursday (follow the yellow brick arrow in the photo below) to reveal what we hope will be preserved foundation of the west wall.

Give us another good day of work, and we'll have some new and exciting photos to show!