Daily Trench Journal

Area C

Trench 1

July 28, 2002

Pits are appearing all over my trench. A possible third seems to reach from the southwest of 1083 to the bottom of 1086. A fourth and possibly even a fifth are in the western half of the trench, which is still a good 10-15 cm above the rest. Today I have Ibrahim, Ayup, and Hashim. A banner day and lots was accomplished, though we still have lots to do. The first part of the day had Ayup and Hashim focused on getting 1085 as close to completion as possible. This is the locus concentrated in the eastern half of the trench, getting rid of all of the multiple and unintentional platforms and different heights of things that were not related to actual loci. Things are looking really good. Also apparently a good deal of 3rd millennium pottery is coming out of my area now. Ibrahim was focused more on the southern and southwestern areas of the trench, also getting rid of extraneous platforms and working on a pit.

1085 – This is the northeastern section of the trench. Very little of interest came out of the southern part of this locus today (though yesterday two more pits were exposed as well as a very interesting wall collapse or mudbrick pavement 1087 that slightly arcs through the southern part of this locus) except for a great deal of carbon and burnt earth just below where L1074 was. We had closed the fire installation locus when we hit a harder area after removing the ashy layer. This ended up being an area of burnt mudbrick with a great deal of burnt earth beneath this. Soil and carbon samples were taken. The northern part is looking very promising. There is an approximately 2m x 1m strip along the north baulk that has three stones protruding from the baulk and is joined by a fourth large and very rectangular stone that is partially contained in the baulk. Just in front of the rectangular stone is a large piece of flat lying pottery. In front of this are more flat lying pottery and a very round falafel-shaped stone.

1091 – This is the pit to the east of the unexcavated stair in the northwest corner of my trench. Recently a number of pit lines have been coming more clear than they had before. I don’t know if this is because I’m becoming more familiar with my trench or if the mudbrick is finally drying out and becoming more visible or a combination of both but things are jumping out all over the place. Anyway, this pit has recently come to my attention. Hashim excavated it and found some large pieces of broken pottery as well as large pieces of broken bone including what looks like a partial animal pelvis. At the base of the softer dirt, there is the usual harder mudbricky matrix as well as some large root/rodent disturbances.

1078 – This is the area left from last year’s excavation in the southwest corner of the trench. While taking this down a pit became apparent with some sort of mudbricky surface at its base. The pit was excavated as locus 1090. See below for more information. The locus was almost removed in totality today. It will be finished tomorrow. The surrounding locus had a good deal of pottery but nothing necessarily flat lying or outstanding in another way! at least to my untrained eye. There was a good deal of possible metal that was removed.

1090 – This is the pit found cutting into L1078. The fill of the pit contained almost no artifacts other than 4-5 small pieces of pottery. At the base of the fill was what was a smoothed mudbrick surface. The pit is fragmentary since I did not find it initially to the west until I had partially gone through it and to the north it had been dug through last season. Below the mudbricky surface was an ashy layer with a good deal of small root disturbances. Below the ashy layer was the same mudbricky surface as is found at the base of the mudbrick wall L1089. The pit was photographed at all stages of excavation including with the mudbricky surface in place and after its removal.

1086 – This is the pit that cuts through the southern part of the wall collapse or mudbrick pavement L1087. Both 1086 and 1088 seem to be pits or some other architectural feature that is capped off with a mudbricky surface. After removing the top capping layer there was a portion of compact dirt followed by another layer of mudbrick still in the same distinct outline. This locus also contained a very large root disturbance as well as two large rodent holes.

Good things are promised.