| Entry: | Team: all in the morning, Tom and Helen at the dighouse after lunch, Jonathan and Catriona
Weather: very hot and no wind, good to have the shelter
In Trench 5, Ezra, Gulgun, Gulay and Hanife were engaged in taking off the stones 13722 and thus exposed a grave (named feature 2404) lining made of stones and tiles (13757) and the fill (13758). After taking photos, they spent the afternoon preparing the drawing with the help of Burcin, who also drew the plaster lines (13726) and mudbricks we've got close to the E profile.
Scott fully exposed the skeleton 13746 in grave 2403 and drew it, so it can be taken out tomorrow. A bone artefact (pin, spoon etc.) in the fill (13743 x6) broke during excavation, so its head came in today, the rest has to be taken out carefully tomorrow, since it is sort of fragile and sticks awkwardly in the E profile of the trench. It is nice to see this woman's personal items: the bone thing had a head carved as a little dragon or seahorse - very cute.
Using an arbitrary layer 13759, Nejat and Ezra started to take down the surface grave 2404 is dug into down to the level of the plaster 13726 to expose more of the grey ashy deposit we got north of 13726. An irregular molehole or pit with soft brown earth (13728) should be dug out separately tomorrow.
Jonathan and Catriona had reached mudbrick they would classify as EC in heir pits yesterday and exposed it further after their sekeletons (13744) had been fully lifted by Patrick.
The puzzling lime crisscross (13735) in the E extension was further consolidated by Mags. We still debate the EC wall decoration (Ingmar), the byzantine mudbrick glue (Duygu) and the burrowing plaster-eating animal discard theory (Chris). I tend to support the first one, since I had the impression we indeed see a fallen mudbrick wall there, so the white stuff we now have lying horizontally was then applied vertically. Also mudbrick does not require ny other binding material than mud mortar. And I am not sure if animals can really dig straight lines when burrowing and especially produce an uniterrupted line of sh**. The dating, however, of that decoration, is far from clear, and I am looking forward to the ceramics of unit 13748 that exposes the crisscross.
Serkan and Mustafa took down the parts in the extension that still seem way to high up, and again a very nice EC type figurine appeared (13723 x4) as well as wall plaster (x5). Ingmar continued drawing there.
In 6, Naiose's sounding using arbitrary layer 13834 and another one underneath produced roughly parallel yellow mudbrick under the trench's N profile as well as on the soundings S end, and line of stones in between. There seems to be a very complex succession of graves still cannot really understand.
In order to understand if the stones 13813 are a wall or a grave, Nesime cleaned the area around it. In its SW corner, I think I see hard greyish soil right beside the course of stones, and than a looser soil right where the stones structure seems to be truncated. So here a pit could explain the open end of the structure. The same applies to its NE corner, where I also see looser soil. So I am now pretty sure we deal with a badly truncated wall stub here. After all, the region is short in stones, so robbing walls seems quite logical. We have to clean more tomorrow, so the pits show in the plans Nick and Tom have drawn.
Vildan dug down in the grave close to the N profile. Looks like the curved mudbrick lining we got there is a later grave that cut into another one with straight mudbrick.
Nesime and Zeliha took down the fill of the mudbrick lined grave on the S profile and reached the skull in the afternoon.
Writing the dfiary takes more than one hour, another meeting today for one hour, our team meeting, the few hours of sleep after the nice Istanbul farewell party - I feel kind of tired and still so much plans and unit sheets to check. Good to know my flight is not directly after our last work day.Entered By: ER |
