Weekly Summary 4--Week ending July 26, 2001

This week was partially lost, in terms of digging, to a day of drawing and photography and a day at the lab. However, some interesting progress was made.

Because everything was documented so nicely via photos and drawings, we were finally able to increase our understanding by cutting through some features and seeing if the reveal anything new. Of course, they revealed new things, but they weren't all in line with what had been expected.

In the south part of the trench, surface L5027 looks like it was good, as were surrounding mudbrick walls L5008 and L5031. However, SW pit L5029 was, upon further examination, determined to be an oven which cut wall L5008 and the surface, and is possibly related to a later pebble surface. Also of note is that some collapsed mudbrick was found while excavating to better understand pit L5024 and is at the same level and may be related to a new mudbrick wall, SW-NE, L5045 which is just now beginning to appear.

Meanwhile, the north remains somewhat unclear. Surface L5034 appears to have a good abuttal with wall L5039 on the E, but its connection to wall L5037 in NW is becoming tenuous, as from excavation of the area where the two should be abutting uncovered very soft and loose soil.... not degraded mudbrick. There is also an ash layer beneath all of L5034 which may actually split the locus from its current dimensions. Though the central mudbrick mess L5031 was cut down at the end of this week, the area didn't have time for a good scraping and cleaning, so hopefully some answers will be forthcoming from there next week.

Finally there is now a cluster of small, round, pottery-lined ovens near the SE corner of L5034 whose context is unclear but may be related. Unfortunately, as they were all discovered at slightly different levels and thus two are becoming pedestled, it may be hard to eventually figure out to what the three were originally associated with.