Bertha is straight up cursed. After a comically long list of delays and boondoggles, the construction crew working on the deep bore tunnel began digging a pit to access and repair Bertha’s broken cutter head on Monday. Only three days later, surprise! The crew made a discovery that will further delay the project. A deposit of shells that “requires further evaluation and may indicate the presence of cultural materials,” according to the Washington State Department of Transportation, was discovered in the dig to repair the broken tunneling machine. Due to strict excavation regulations on the discovery of cultural materials, the crew was forced to stop.

WSDOT is consulting with tribal governments and archaeologists to evaluate the shells, halting the project’s progress until the discovery’s cultural significance can be determined. The timeline before the discovery was made projected that Bertha might be up and running again by March of 2015, a schedule that the Seattle Tunnel Partners says is now “out of wiggle room.”

Bertha was supposed to have completed boring the SR 99 tunnel this week. pic.twitter.com/KOMvsnmTqx

— Tunnel Watch (@TunnelWatch) October 23, 2014