| Entry: | We (myself and Jonathan) have come to the end of our handover of the West Mound to Peter and Burcen, and have been working in Trench 5 on the West Mound for the last eight days or so. During this time it has been quite frustrating in the sense that everything seems to take so long and go so slow, but this is understandable especially given the fact that it is a new team that is mainly comprised of students. I suppose I am used to working with experienced professional commercial archaeologists where efficiency and quality are always the two most important things. Anyway Jonathan and myself have tried to contribute what we can to the area - if people want advice we will give it but politically we cannot possibly charge in and suggest strategies. That is not our job this year - we are here to offer help and guidance, teach where possible and provide essential continuity between excavation and also the pottery recording and analysis (with Burcen). It is taking too long, some pople are being over-cautious and there is far too much brushing but I hope that this will change next year and Eva certainly wants this to happen and we have had a good talk.
We have put together a end of excavation trench map that may well change in the next few days bu at least the bulk is there. First there are a number of unexcvated graves that we have defined, sketched, mapped and assigned cut and grave fill numbers to. This will be clear on the AutoCad drawing and also on Jonathan's unit sheet for 13749 which has a detailed sketch plan on the back with the numbers and also the levels. Some of these graves will probably remain unexcavated until next year. However, the good news is that these graves seem to be more shallow and generally have less complicated grave furniture/ architecture than those we has cut into B25. However, perhaps they are more dense and we do seem to have evidence of intercutting here - maybe the graves were not so clearly marked and that is why they are perhaps more disturbed (accidentally rather than deliberate grave robbing). WE have also identified 'fragments' or small jigsaw puzzle pieces of Chalcolithic architecture/ buildings. First there is a N-S aligned wall - 13773 which may have partially slumped or eroded as it is slightly off alignment to the south. This may link up with what is in the trench extension area where there is a corner of a double mudbrick wall with mortar to west which suggests room fill. This wall has been partially removed by the workmen but in the northern section there is a weird circular like plaster thing (ie within the roomfill deposits) which may be a plaster bin or else it could just be plaster collapse - but it is worth pointiing this out. There is also slightly truncated further Chalco mudbrick walls in the south of the trench extension, as these can be seen in the section. They appear to peel off on to plaster suggesting that the interior room is plaster lined and links up with Burcen's plaster faced walls in the main part of the trench to the west (with buttress etc) - 13760. So we have fragments and Ingmar has now managed to reveal a number of mudbrick walls including a double wall aligned E-W and a further wall aligned N-S abutting the E-W one. Between this wall there is a grey ashy dirty fill and then the wall that has been partially truncated and can be seen in the section (associated with the plaste face). This is very confusing - too many walls and not enough space between for a room/ space - only c. 0.4m max. S what I think now is that this area of grey ashy deposit actually represents a between wall space and what we may have here is a gap between two separate buildings or at least rooms/ an open area where midden material etc is being dumped. Anyway these interpretations will probably all change when more is revealed and clarified and perhaps the trenches are extended!! That's the beauty of archaeology.
But it's all starting to come together for 2007!!Entered By: CDG |
