Daily Trench Journal

Area D

Trench 5

July 17, 2002

Today L5085 was definitively revealed to be a pit (by a plaster lining and appropriately lying pottery obviously a much later period than that just to the S) and larger than originally thought. The section profile of the area also shows the pit to have continued some 35 centimeters vertically from where we currently are, taking it above the general ash layer which seals the more southern contexts.

Speaking of which, continued excavation of the areas under L5095 (as L5109) revealed several highly diagnostic Ubaid sherds and a lovely polished stone bead (KT 5109.5) and a pot sherd with a hole drilled through for re-use as a spindle whorl or something similar (KT 5109.4).

However, as L5085 becomes more and more clearly revealed as a plaster-lined pit I am doubting my original designation of L5087 as a mudbrick wall as part of that designation relied upon that same plaster as being a coating on the outside of a mudbrick wall, which it now clearly is not. Rather, I now suspect pit L5085 cuts whatever was occurring with the Ubaid-contemporary contexts as they continued northward.

In the central-W, organic feature L5098 continues below still more mudbrick collapse, but I have found an area where it takes an upturn, which may be indicative of its northernmost extent.

What is occurring in the far North still remains unclear to me, however. Either the area is still surface tumble, which seems somewhat unlikely, especially in the W or the area is simply cut by a number of, or a few very large, pits—which may be the case as areas of soft soil and ash concentrations keep popping up. To investigate I opened a new locus in the N as a sounding level (L5113) to try and figure the area out.