Daily Trench Journal

Area D

Trench 5

July 20, 2002

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but things look to be clearing up once more in the majority of the trench. A large portion of the N region is occupied by an ashy pit/deposit, as is the NW, with its very own ash pit, and the NE, where surface tumble may still be the order of the day. The ashy pit/deposit, L5116, was partially excavated today, turning up the usual selection of finds (pottery, animal bone, some carbon and a few lithics) and a nice bronze pin, KT 5116.1.

Elsewhere in the trench, continued excavation of L5100, which I am relatively certain is now collapse, in the central region of the trench revealed a complete small bowl (KT 5100.27) and screening caught a broken bone bead (KT 5100.33). Some work was also done in abutting stone concentration L5099. My current guess is that the area is not a wall but rather just organized-appearing collapse as organic surface L5098 looks to be plunging beneath.

In addition to looking to go under L5099, uncoverment of the feature to the E, in L5108 revealed some fragments of metal, presumably copper given the expected age of the surface, literally resting on the organic material. Though there was no in tact artifact remaining, the material was collected for possible chemical analysis as KTs 5108.14, 5108.15 and 5108.16.

Finally the portion of last year’s oven (associated with S mudbrick house) which had been pedestaled earlier in this year’s excavation was removed as L5115. Excavation uncovered some pottery but nothing really typical of an oven (ash or burnt material) which leads me to believe the context is finished. However, to the W the oven wall looks to continue a little bit further down, so some further excavation may still be required to settle the matter once and for all.