Kenan Tepe

Area F

Trench 22

Andy Creekmore

Saturday June 18 2005

Today we dug fill locus 10 to find and define an emerging wall, L11. We started a new locus, L12, as the fill south of wall L11, and continued fill Locus 9 as the fill north of the wall. We apparently finished burial L6 and partially dug pit L13.

L10:

We excavated this fill locus to find and define an E-W running wall that we saw in the east section of the trench (trench F4’s west section). We began at the 1m wide probe in this locus that we started on June 16, and pushed about 3 meters west and 2m north of the SE corner of the trench before stopping to define the wall. In the process we cut 2.5 courses of the wall but we clearly defined its width and path. It runs slightly NE-SW, is about 1m wide, and has 4 rows of bricks. Locus 10 is therefore a mix of the wall matrix and the fill to the north and south of it. Locus 10 contained very little cultural material.

L11:

We followed this wall towards the SW corner of the trench but despite much scraping we could not see it continuing West, nor perhaps cornering and heading north. We are certain that it does one or both of these things but we will have to remove more soil to see this clearly. Of the three courses exposed, two are grey/tan and one is red.

L12:

Once we had defined the wall L11, we made the fill south of it L12. We removed this locus in a small area about 2m E-W by 1m N-S in the SW corner of the trench. We only dug this small area because we do not want to cut Wall L11 any more, but instead dig up to its southern face. This soil is moderately compacted reddish brown loam with some melted mudbricks. This locus contained very little cultural material.

L9:

After defining wall L11 we kept previously designated L9 because it essentially corresponded to the fill north of the wall. We removed about 30cm of this locus in an area roughly 4m E-W by 1m N-S, up to the edge of burial L6 and pit L13. We used separate KT bags for the material next to the pits just in case any contamination remained from the pits. The soil is reddish brown, moderately compacted fill consisting of some mudbrick debris, pebbles, and burned mud plaster bits, like that found in situ on the eastern face of the large wall in the trench west of F1.

L6:

We seem to have completed the removal of the skeleton of individual two, which was mostly intact save for its left arm, some ribs and vertebra (the former was disturbed while the latter decayed). The pit may continue down a bit, as the ash surface in the north section appears cut here, but the bones of the burial are (we think) finished.

L13:

We defined a new pit today as an area east of L6, which previously was outlined with L6. It now seems that this pit is, if not separate, at least notable for its lack of any bones, so we are digging it as a separate locus. It probably reflects the larger disturbed area of the burials. We dug about 40cm of this pit today. It is a mix of loose and compact grey and reddish brown soil with some pebbles.

Summary:

Wall 11 is now clearly running NE-SW and may corner with a wall running north at the western edge of the trench. From the section cut into wall L11 it is clear that the stones of L8 were laid directly over the wall L11 and the fill to the south, L12. This accounts for the thicker layers of L8 to the south, because the stones were filling up the depression of the fill, while the stones to the north were set over the ruins of wall L11.

Tomorrow we will continue removing L6, 9, 12, and 13 to define wall L11 and its associations, and to push down to living surfaces.

F22JP06182005