Daily Summary

Area F, Trench 2

June 15, 2005

Melissa Eppihimer

One worker started by taking down 2046 in the NW of the trench (the soil under the bricky layer 2038) to the level of 2043 in the rest of the trench.

Another continued in the pit, but the soil quickly shifted from a mottled soil to a more black soft ash. In this ash was found a number of child bones (toes and ankles). It is not yet clear if these bones are a disturbed burial, a burial poking through from outside the pit context, or another context completely. I’ve stopped work until I can figure out what is going on.

After sweeping and spraying the whole trench, the different areas of orange, gray, and white soil were nearly impossible to convincingly define, so we decided to cut out 2 sections (65 by 20 cm and 50 by 20 cm) into the pit 2042 walls to try to catch the walls and any stratigraphy that can give us a window into the area.

In both of the sections the plaster line is very clear and runs down about one half meter until the soil changes in the pit section. At this lower level there is a plaster floor/surface (?). To the E of the plaster line in both sections is the red brick wall (2044). To the W is mottled fill (2043). I’m having the workers big-pick 2043 (the W part of the trench) 10 cm to see if we’ll come down on other contexts. We have left a 15 cm wide protective swath W from the plaster line. This will be removed when we are ready to expose the plaster-covered wall.

Because of a dust storm, this task was not finished before the day ended.