Daily Journal

Area D

Trench 8

E. O.

July 20, 2004

Today we plan to take the spider photo. To do this we need to articulate the architecture of the trench. Specifically we are going to try and detail wall L14 and L17. We started by continuing to bring down L33 to get a south side profile of L14. When we reached the bottom of this locus we found a floor. This floor is somewhat broken up but we found several places where we can see parts of the floor touching wall L14. Because what we want is architecture that has context and is connected to other architecture we are going to follow this floor. To do this we have to remove locus 25 which is a fill layer.

We also want to expose wall L17 which is a wall whose architectural style matches that of 14. To do this we brought L21 and 22 down 20 centimeters on either side of the wall.

When we took out L25 we did not find the floor L 41.

Wall L34 was removed and brought down to the level of the top of L40 and L37. When we removed this wall we pulled well defined mud bricks out of the northern part but the southern part resembled fill more than anything else. However it was good to receive further confirmation that that had been a wall, because without that being a wall floor L9 stopped abruptly without reason.

I had assigned Loci in the northwest corner of the trench for the new wall yesterday. However when we took out L34 it made more sense to combine the loci I had assigned yesterday. The only thing that had been dividing them had been that wall, and the wall was brought down to that level. L37 and L40 which had previously been loci on the west and east sides of wall 34 were combined into L43. The wall itself, which is a corner, had been L36 in the west and L39 in the east but is now L44. Because this reassignment came at the end of the day everything that was done during the day, including pictures and loci associations will reflect those numbers. I made it very clear in the data base that the loci had been combined and canceled, but the photo record and some notes will reflect the old numbers.

The packed plaster floor L32 was removed but we found another packed plaster floor underneath. This floor looks exactly the same. This may be because the dimensions are the same. It should be noted that the dimensions of these floors are somewhat artificially imposed because of where and how we dug other loci. In the section created by L30 it is clear that there is a fill layer underneath these floors.

Though I want to remove the second floor L42 this afternoon at 4:30 we will be taking the spider shots so we spent the last hour cleaning the whole trench and taking down the tent in preparation for the photos.