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Tuesday, July 18 2023

AM

We are continuing to excavate in Locus 45, removing the mottled soil of the deposit in order to fully expose the underlying surface of EPOC4’s plaster-rich floor. The floor surface of EPOC4 slopes downward from N to S and E to W, and we are concentrating our efforts in the westernmost meter of the locus, where Locus 45 is both at its highest elevation and its thickest. Here, we are trying to bring the elevation of the entire locus down in order to more easily detect the presence of EPOC4’s floor. In the western meters of the locus, the soil remains claylike, loose, and mottled, with terracotta, carbon, and limestone inclusions. We are excavating using handpicks and trowels, hand sorting soil in the trench, then passing soil through 1cm and 2mm gauges sieves. We are recovering high quantities of tile, plaster, and pottery, moderate quantities of bone and slag, and small amounts of vitrified terracotta. We also found a small iron sphere (Find #56) and a bronze fragment (Find #57) in the NW meter of the Locus.

Simultaneously, we began scraping down the floor of the locus in the easternmost meter, in order to remove the last of the Locus 45

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Soil and expose the plaster-rich surface of EPOC4’s floor, however, app. 20cm west of the edge of the Locus, at app 106.30 E. the plaster-rich floor of EPOC4 seems to be rectilinearly cut and infilled with a dark live brown, claylike soil. At this point, it is not securely clear whether this is in fact, a cut into EPOc4’s floor and, if so, what the shape and dimensions of the cut are, so we will work to more fully expose and define this potential cut. While working along the S foundation wall of EPOC4 to better define the potential cut into EPOC4’s floor, we recovered a fragment of an iron nail (Find #58), found resting atop EPOC4’s floor.

We continued working to level the westernmost meters of the locus. Here, soil remains loosely compacted and mottled. Although we are neary level with the rest of the locus and exposed parts of EPOC4’s floor, we still have not encountered the plaster-rich floor surface. This indicates that EPOC4’s floor slopes perceptably downward, from NE to SW. Whale working in the W-most meters of the Locus, we recovered a crucible fragment (Find #59), a pithos fragment with adhered slag (Find #60), and fragments of pozzolana (Find #61).

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We also worked to scrape the remaining locus 45 soil from EPOC4’s plaster-rich floor in the eastern meters of the locus. Doing so revealed that EPOC4’s floor slopes downward gently from N to S but at app. 45.25 S and 106.30 E, the floor surface is cut rectangularly. The cut also is oriented app. Parrallell to EPOC4’s foundational wall. At this point, it is not yet clear now how far west the cut extends.

Special Finds:

• Special find #56

• Locus 45

• 104.37 E/44.96 S

• 26.37m A.E.

• Iron sphere

• Special Find #57

• Locus 45

• 104.54 E/45.05 S

• 26.32m A.E.

• Bronze fragment

• Special find #58

• Locus 45 106.02 E/46.64 E

• 26.25m A.E.

• Iron nail fragment

• *Resting atop EPOC4 floor*

• Special find #59

• Locus 45

• 104.38 E/45.48 S

• 26.24m A.E.

• Crucible fragment

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• Special find #60

• Locus 45

• 104.37 E/44.90 S

• 26.32m A.E.

• Pithos fragment with adhered slag

• Special find #61

• Locus 45

• 104.35 E/45.16 S

• 26.39m A.E.

• Pozzolana fragments

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PM

We began the afternoon by trying to better expose and define the apparent cut made into EPOC4’s plaster-rich floor. Moving from E to W, we began to more fully expose the edges of the cut. The cut appears to be rectilinear in the eastern half of the locus. While initially it seemed to be oriented parallel to EPOC4’s foundation wall, we now can see that it is oriented at a slightly different angle and that EPOC4’s floor was cut right where it underlies EPOC4’s foundation wall, at app. 104.50 E. Additionally, what we had thought might be a depression in EPPOC4’s floor, in the western and southern meters of the locus may be a continuation of the cut; in the eastern meters, in the rectilinear portion of the cut, the cut is infilled by a highly compacted, claylike, olive brown soil, and a similar soil is starting to appear in the western meters of the locus. We will work to scrape down the locus to fully reveal EPOC4’s plaster-rich floor and to see where it may have been cut.

In order to fully reveal the shape of the cut, we scraped back from where EPOC4’s plaster-rich floor has been exposed. Doing so clarified the shape of the cut, which appears to be L-shaped. Once this was revealed, we swept the trench floor, in preparation for closing Locus 45.

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Locus 45:

• Tile + plaster: 1 bowl

• Pottery: 242 sherds

• Bone: 27 fragments

• Slag: 36 fragments

• Vitrified terracotta: 14 fragments

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