Gozo Days 2 & 3

On Thursday and Friday we returned to Gozo to continue mapping the Tal Gruwa cisterns with George. We started Thursday morning by redeploying in Site 12. George was interested in capturing still images of the entrance to the passageway that we had found the day before. We decided to capture stereo images, since we had to attach one GoPro anyways. These stereo images will give Erik and I some great sample data to test our code.

Example Left Camera Stereo Image

While we were waiting, a local farmer came by and showed Dr. Lehr, Cecilia, and I a dried up cistern that was located on his property. His grandfather found it many years ago and discovered human bones while exploring it.  

The team was just finishing up capturing data when we returned. Vanessa asked for a few extra minutes to search for the fish that we had found the previous day. About 30 seconds later she had found it, and the small goldfish certainly was not camera shy!

We then began to move our equipment to Site 4, but it began to rain before we could finish setting up. We decided to try to wait out the rain but gave up and had our van pick us up after an hour. Even though the rain died off soon after, we would not have been able to continue since some of our equipment was wet and needed to dry before use. We drove to the Gozo Cathedral to tour around until our return ferry arrived.

 The following day we started at Site 4. It was my first turn to drive the VideoRay while in Malta, so I was very excited. Last year, the ICEX team had accidentally discovered this cistern was connected to Site 3 by a small passageway.

Site 3 and 4

Hole in the road that we believe leads to newly found chamber

Not only did we find this passage, but we also found another canyon at the bottom of the Site 4 chamber that led to a large rectangular chamber. We believe that this chamber lies beneath the paved road next to the farm. The chambers contained multiple features on a number of levels, so we took 18 sonar scans that we will use to reconstruct it in 3D. 

After a quick lunch, we moved our equipment across the road to explore two additional cisterns, which were located in the middle of some corn and wheat fields. Both of these cisterns were small enough to capture in a single sonar scan, but changed shape with depth. We decided to take scans, against the wall, at several levels (approximately one meter apart) for 3D reconstruction. These cisterns took the remainder of the day, so we packed up our equipment and waved George goodbye. George told us that he really hopes that we are able to return some day to finish mapping some of the other cisterns of Tal Gruwa and after all of our exciting discoveries of hidden chambers, cistern burial chambers, and fish, I think the team would be just as excited to return!