July 19, 2001

Work in the trench continues to focus on understanding the relation between the surfaces in the north and the south and the many mudbrick features and wall about the trench.

In this spirit, we spent the early part of the day articulating and cutting mudbrick. L5018 (NW-SE 1 row 1 course mudbrick wall) was removed because it appeared to be associated with the now removed N-central mudbrick feature (L5025). The remaining thin area of mudbrick of L5018 was easily removed and is above what I originally believed to be a piece of mudbrick wall, but I now think is a mudbrick or packed mud surface because later today I found a wonderfully preserved oven (L5036), which we excavated (and, of course, took a soil sample from). The odd thing is that the area of the oven's mouth is stepped up from the N-trench surface level by about 20 cm but possibly consistent with surface in the S end of the trench. Though I am still confident of the wall dividing the two portions of the trench I do not believe it as extensive as I once did. The orientation of the wall associated with the S and possibly N surface is clearly NW-SE and not W-E.

In the NW corner of the trench we articulated the mudbrick we had suspected was there (L5019) and a nice set of bricks came up, which appear to the easternmost point of a NW-SE wall. Unfortunately, the far NW is riddled with animal burrows.

Oven L5033 was also excavated and has a wonderful pottery sherd lining. This over seems to be associated with N-area surface L5034 whereas the association of oven L5036 remains pretty unclear.

The top few centimeters of central mudbrick wall L5031 were removed, bringing its entire surface down to the level of the best preserved mudbrick. It now clearly shows a corner between the SW-NE mudbrick wall L5008 and a NW-SE wall which are connected to S-surface L5027.

The final interesting find of the day was a re-evaluation of SW pit L5029. It turns out it is not a pit sealed by L5008 but instead a large over/kiln which cuts the wall and appears (from looking in the section) to have had its highest point and the mysterious pebble surface... There are actually very clear ash lines showing the area of the kiln and burnt mudbricks showing an edge. How I didn't put these together before I'm not sure.

The ovens are small (~10-20cm opening) and round, whereas the large oven/kiln is probably (goes into baulk) a meter or more in diameter and ovoid.