Daily Log

12

July 27, 1971

Although it was originally decided today to continue to dig in T9 N-O 3-7 only, because the wall apparently came to an end in grid O 3-4 to the eat, subsequent excavation indicated that the wall continues father east than we had though. THerefore, the 1/2 meter wide profile left in N-O5 paralleling the wall was eventually removed in the decision to go ahead and clear the whole 5 meter square area as originally planned when laid out. However, the N-O5 earthen profile wall did serve the purpose of emphasizing the fact, which the northerin trench boundary strongly suggested in the first place, that the wall in question is itself not liad in a straight line and in any case deviates from the line of the walls in the "Upper" building

13

14

to the west which T9 trench outlines continue and/or parallel. The wall in out T9 extension, in other words, is crooked and slants southwards.

In terms of construction, the wall appears wider in the new trench compared to its beginning to the west revealed in 1969 excavation, though this may be due to erosion over the interval years. Also, beginning in grid O, the top of the wall is definitely lower than the portion to the west, even in grid N which is newly excavated this season. The top of the wall in O is in fact level to and in contact with a flat rock lying just outside (north) of the wall. This large flat stone lines up with two others, one in M-N 3 fully disclosed this season and one father west which has been given "absolute" height classification by the architect of 28.39.

15

16

There three flat stones lying at regular intervals north or outside of the wall be be reinforcements (though the two farthest west do not contact the wall) or column or rather lean-to bases. Perhaps tomorrow will tell. Already in P there seems to be another.

Finds are difficult to located in terms of stratitfication because the latter has been distrurbed by vegetation (forest=tree roots) and perhaps soil leaching: ancient remains are very close to surface level. Roughly, digging down to approx 50cm below surface level seems to indicate, from top to bottom, a dark brown topsoil, a lighter yellow-brown clay strata, tiles mixed wutg sgarp limestone ricks, then more rocks intermingled with small potsherds and tile fragments before finally reaching bedrock. Because of this poorly defined stratification and because of the rough

17

18

nature of most pottery finds, vase fragments will probably eventually be grouped together without too much attention paird to smaller grid and depth desgination. However, some discrepancy in type of finds was noticeable between those from around the wall and those father south at the same depth in grids 6-7: rather many tiles and largish coarse ware sherds came fromt he wall area as opposed to the 6-7 finds, which were mostly minute sherds of finer ware, as well as smaller and fewer tile fragments.

Individual finds, coming from the third and fourth cuts (down to c.50 cm below surface level) were mostly small, that is, no frieze plaques, etc. From the wall area came two unidentifiable pieces of bronze and two rochetti with stamps. From the 6-7 grids farther south came three plain rochetti and one red-painted

19

20

sherd, Italo-Corinthian?

21

22

19710346

19710346

• Find #6
• T9 O3 50cm down in corner between flat rock and wall
• Impasto rochetto with concentric circle stamp
  • drawing
  • photograph

19710343

19710343

• Find #8
• T9 N-O 6-7 4th cut
• Plain impasto rochetto
  • drawing
  • photograph