Please consider the following fragment of an article:
An agricultural worker, digging in the ground of a derelict plantations, scraped open a grave -- the first of dozens in a burial ground some 3,000 years old.
Are both "scraped" and "open" acting as verb?
"Scraped" is a verb.
"Open" is not being used as a verb here. You could say it's being used as an adjective here, or you could say it's an adverb.
There are a number of words that can be used to indicate a direction or state following a verb. I think a case easier to understand is the verb "pull". You can "pull up", "pull down", "pull left", "pull right", "pull open", "pull closed", "pull apart", etc.
In all these cases, you're saying where the thing is after you pulled it. If you "pull up", then before it was down but now it's up, etc.
Similarly with "scraped" here. The grave was previously closed, but after the scraping it is now open.
So you could say that "open" is the new state, and thus an adjective, or that it's the direction or manner in which it was scraped, and is thus an adverb.
To scrape is to "drag or pull a hard or sharp implement across (a surface or object) so as to remove dirt or other matter".
The context from the original article sounds like the farmer was working his field (possibly with a hoe or spade) and while digging (scraping) found and opened this grave. It would mean he dug down and then onto the upper surface of the grave as opposed to breaking through the top of the grave.
Scraped is simple past verb.
The double dash is a way of showing an em dash and is used depending on functionality available in the output device. It is "used to denote a break in a sentence or to set off parenthetical statements – ideally with intradocument consistency".
