Kenan Tepe

Area F

Trench 22

Andy Creekmore

Sunday June 19 2005

Today we continued to dig fill locus 10 to find and define an emerging wall, L11. We removed a lot of the fill north of the wall (L9). We started a new locus, L14, as a pit in the NW corner of the trench. Finally, we redefined pit L13.

L10:

We excavated this fill locus to find and define the western end of wall L11. We removed about 5cm across the entire top of the wall area left high at the western end of the trench. This work did not show the wall very well but we did uncover some grey and black ash beyond where the wall would corner if it connects to the wall in the trench to the NW. Having failed to find the wall, we turned to Locus 9.

L9:

We removed a lot of the fill north of wall L11 today in three main areas: 1) just north of the wall, moving east of the probe we began yesterday, up to the edge of pit L13. 2) In the NE corner of the trench in an approximately 60cm E-W area moving south over where pit L4 used to be. We used separate KT bags for the soil over the former pit in case of any lingering contamination. We left an approximately 0.80m N-S X 0-.50m E-W strip of L9 standing in the eastern end of the trench to serve as a temporary baulk to help us under stand the stratigraphy here. 3) We removed L9 from the NW corner of the trench, hoping to find the wall L11 cornering and heading north. We found lot of brick debris, some of it burned, but no wall. The soil in L9 is generally silty and clayey loam brick debris with some pebbles and not too much cultural material (excepting in the NE corner of the trench where we found many potsherds).

In the NE corner of the trench we are also attempting to trace a wall that runs E-W from trench F19 into trench F22. It runs into pit L4 but we still hope to figure out its path and how it relates to wall L11.

Having failed to find a wall turning north in the NW corner of the trench, we removed the temporary baulk between the NW corner of F22 and the trench to the NW. The goal was to chop down this segment of earth to the level of the N-S wall, L11 in trench F20, to follow the bricks to the south. When we got down to that level we did not find the wall continuing because it was cut by a pit, newly named L14!

L14:

This pit is about 1.25m N-S by 0.50m E-W. It cuts L11 in trench F20 and runs south into F22. We dug part of this pit to the level of the wall (L11 in F20) today. It contains a brown fill with some ash. It is bordered in part by some burned mudbrick debris.

L13:

We had to redefine L13 today because the L6 burial has been removed but the conglomerate that is L6 and L13 is merging into one. It seems that L13 was a long, narrow pit that was later cut by L6. The redefined L13 is 2.20m E-W by 0.90m N-S. We dug to the base of the pit in the east, as evidenced by the appearance of the ash of the surface below. Yet the pit seems to cut the floor in the west and needs to be further investigated. The fill of the pit is notably grey in color when dry, as opposed to the reddish brown of surrounding L9. The pit contained a mix of loose and compact soil, brick debris and pebbles, which likely derived from the layers (L9) that the pit cut.

Summary:

Despite removing part of the top of wall L11 as locus 10, and lots of fill north of the wall as L9, we failed to accurately define the west end of wall L11, nor did we find a clear corner going north. Instead we found pit L14 cutting the wall in the trench to the NW. We also redefined pit L13 cutting fill L9.

F22JP06192005