A shallow indentation identifies a potential tomb. The morning sun backlights clouds of dust above the student excavator. Careful removal of each layer happens so slowly and those darned debris tubs fill up so quickly!
This reality of archaeological excavation–dust, heat, hauling dirt–is balanced by the curiosity, passion, and gratification of adding one more bit of knowledge to the story of Pollentia, the major Roman colony on Mallorca, and to our understanding of the Late Antique necropolis found at the south end of the Pollentia site in the Can Fanals sector.
Welcome to UP RAP: Research & Archaeology @ Pollentia! Since 2014, the University of Portland has brought faculty-student teams to Pollentia to assist in the overall excavation and to reopen and expand excavation of the Can Fanals necropolis. We form a close-knit community for this six-week effort, living in rented villas in the medieval walled city of Alcúdia and working daily alongside Spanish archaeologists and students in the field. We retreat to Can Domenech, the Excavation House in Alcúdia, to escape the afternoon heat and to focus on lab work, either artifact processing (cleaning, identification, cataloguing) or research within UP faculty-student teams.
For the 2022 expedition, UP RAP functions as a faculty-led program within the UP Office of Studies Abroad under the leadership of Dr. Ronda Bard, Visiting Scholar and UP Site Leader (bardr@up.edu). Additional UP faculty researchers include Dr. Valerie Walters (walters@up.edu), Sr. Angela Hoffman, O.S.B. (hoffman@up.edu), and Prof. Kara Breuer (breuer@up.edu). Beyond excavation work, our research efforts with student collaborators have included studies in spectroscopy, photography (aerial and 3D), 3D LiDAR imaging, theology, ethics, education, and marketing,
The UP teams work at the invitation of the Consortium of the Roman City of Pollentia, the University of Barcelona and the University of La Laguna, and under the supervision of the Pollentia Co-Directors, Professors Miguel Ángel Cau Ontiveros, Esther Chávez Álvarez, and Catalina Mas Florit. The UP founding visionary of the Pollentia adventure, Fr. H. Richard Rutherford, C.S.C., Emeritus Professor of Theology (ruther@up.edu) provides academic support and theological direction to the UP field teams from his residence on The Bluff throughout the year, with special prayers and instructions focused on the summer expeditions.
Photo credits: Adam Guggenheim