August 1, 2001

Unfortunately, as predicted the two E-W soundings revealed very little new information (southern--5052, northern--5053). Though a possible mortar line did show up in the far west of L5053, it is not consistent with the orientation of any other wall-type feature remaining in the trench (NW-SE). However, the area of southern fill locus 5044 does not show the line continuing, so either the line is aberrant or some other type of feature, or the feature it is associated with remains deeper in the trench. The S section of L5053 also showed that what was previously thought to be a "perfect corner" in the sandy material of L5038 was actually improperly diagnosed as the material was on a slope and continues eastward, though at a lower level. The edge to the S, however, does seem accurate.

NW pit L5047 was excavated today, it contained mostly ash fill with some loose soil. The pit undercuts the western remainder of L5038 and some of the remainder of L5037 so that will need assessed for possible work with digging those loci tomorrow. I'm also not completely confident we have the pit properly outlined at the moment, because one of my workers took the initiative to straighten the sections of my pit for me, which, had it been almost any other locus would have been good, but not in this case. He also flattened the bottom a little before he gained my attention. Thankfully, the pit is up against the western baulk, so no real harm was done as any discrepancies between the remainder of the pit and its actual dimensions will be visible there.

Finally, a portion of thin, loose, stacked layers of clay/silt (imagine water gathering and depositing the stuff as it evaporates) was removed from the W-center of the trench (L5054). The area had been originally thought of as ashy, but that was inaccurate.