Well almost.

In September of 2015 we conducted a geo-mapping survey of the ruins of the town's Roman street colonnades.

Throughout our 20 years of excavations many examples of grey granite columns, transported from quarries at Troad in Turkey, have been found on our site and throughout the town's other archaeological zones. This year we decided to map them using a total station (known affectionately to the team as Mrs. Trimble) and survey grade GPS and, question if they represent the remains of a Roman colonnade. 

In brief, we suggest that the mapped columns fall along two significant axes which represent the alignment of the major north-south and east-west Roman roads. The east-west road runs right along the front of the theatre, and recent seasons have uncovered significant portions of the road and drainage system. These are traditionally called the cardo maximus and the decumanus maximus, respectively. The full report of our findings will be uploaded to our season reports page shortly.

This season our team surveyor also traversed the theatre with a camera mounted on a 4.5 metre pole taking 2639 photographs which were then stitched together creating an orthographically correct 3D image of the theatre site and surrounding area. This was a pilot program to explore the advantages of Pole Photogrammetry at the theatre site. The results are so fine that even old cigarette butts can be identified. Future seasons will see us implement further such techniques to record and map our archaeological progress.

The work done this year also incorporated significant planning sessions for future fieldwork, storage solutions for the considerable finds already uncovered by the team and, publication progress.