Daily Trench Journal

Area F

Trench 1

July 5, 2002

Another year begins at Kenan Tepe. I am excavating the same trench that I did last year, but I am hoping to do even better than last year. After re-examining the trench to get my bearing straight we were ready to go.

Yesterday F1 had been cleaned and gotten ready for excavation. I had just entered the country and was recovering from a severe case of jet lag, so I was not the one who cleaned the trench. Although no artifacts were recovered during this cleaning period, shots of the trench were taken to show how it would be to begin the year. Since photos were taken we assigned the entire trench the cleaning locus number of 1056. This trench was quickly removed as the day began as we assigned new locus numbers to the trench.

We began today by taking measurements and dividing the trench into new loci. The trench basically had three main divisions, the large hole in the center of the trench which is the remains of the oven, a pit next to the south wall, and the rest of the trench. The rest of the trench appeared to all be about the same, a surface upon which the very black ashy layer from last year had been deposited. We are not certain whether this surface was man-made or not. This surface appears to be a hard packed clay surface, which may have been hard packed because of the high heat, which undoubtedly was pushed upon it. The pit near the south wall we named 1057, the oven 1058, and the remains of the oven wall we gave a separate locus of 1059. The rest of the trench we named 1060.

The pit, as we left it last year, had ended with the discovery of several circular stones, which were about 10 cm wide. To see whether the stones continued we began a mini-sounding to the east of the pit to see if the stones were underneath areas, which would not have been the pit. This way we could tell whether the stones were intentionally added to be the bottom of the pit or whether they were just a burden to someone who could not cut through them. We named this locus 1061. This area ended up mixing several different types of soil, some soft brown soil and some darker brown soil, but since this was an arbitrary sounding we decided to go all the way down to the rocks. The rocks didn’t continue to the east, but it didn’t look as though the stones were put there for a specific reason either.

In this area we found a small piece of metal slag. We took a soil sample from the area around this slag. Also found in the pottery for this area a large pottery piece, which looks as though it may have been a pottery stand or some other such thing, which was similar in content to a pottery base thing found last year in F4.

On the other side of the trench, in the northwest corner, we took down the area about 5 cm. This surface was very clean, with a limited amount of artifacts. A notable find from this area, which was part of locus 1060, were two pieces of obsidian. These obsidian pieces were nice, and one looked very clean cut and blade like. These blades were labeled as a small find.

Overall we had a nice start to the season. I think that last year’s finishing point was a perfect place to end, and this is a good place to begin.

CM