| Entry: | Weather: pretty hot, and we worked outside until 6 o'clock to manage the graves
With Sedef at the Total Station and Nejat mainly in photography, Zeliha finished excavating grave 2404 and we obtained a date for it (13780) and its disturbance (13781). Vildan and I drew the skeleton in grave 2406. I felt a bit strange straddling this old man's remains, but I hope his soul will somehow understand that this is the best way to get a directly horizontal view to document his bones. Found myself re-re-thinking the plans for my own burial once more, now again gravitating towards inhumation. Burcin and Gulay exposed the skeleton in grave 2409 and drew it. So they are all ready for lifting.
By taking down the N mudbrick wall of grave 2403, Naiose exposed an insight into almost half a meter of stratigraphy of the possibly EC structures cut by the grave. We then started to take down the fill between the mudbrick wall 2408 and the E profile using unit 13763, which was visible as the fill abutting the plaster 13726 in the level. When cleaned, the fill appears to very white, behaving like a floor surface, so this renders our first assumption doubtful that under the mudbrick wall of 2403 (13725 and 13752) as well as under unit 13786 we hit floors. But this could be our first clean EC unit today, on the penultimate day! I am looking forward to see the finds when washed. It all looks like an inside room fill, quickly deposited as the plaster did not have time to erode, so we can indeed tentatively interpret the ashy stuff on the other side of wall 2408 as an outside midden area, as has been suggsted by Jonathan and Catriona.
Ingmar started to draw plans of the two mudbrick walls exposed by them on their last days, and Burcin documented the cut 13775.
The multiple floor and basin structures in the W of trench 6 are still in the process of being dcumented by Tom. Shahina not only made us think about if the mudbrick has actually aready gone and we still see the mortar sticking upwards as "basins", but also recalled a hellenistic house floor on the east mound. The last would make sense with the wall stub we got in the middle of the trench. The first seems implausible at the moment, since we can distinguish several construction episodes within the structures. Helen's skeleton was lifted, and so we slowly get them all "home" safely and in time.
Alas, the pit 13880 Nick started to excavate yesterday yielded another grave very deep at its or yet another structure's bottom. Due to the loose cosistency of the fill, however, it is in a very bad condition. The stone lined grave in the center which is badly disturbed at its head is fully exposed now.
After lunch visit by the seminar group today, just when I had to react to calls for help, unit numbers, labels, drawing advice etc. all over the trench. So hardly a glance posssible as to who is who in that group of prominent names, gnilpf.
Now all the superficially visible graves are exposed, so we can indeed finish tomorrow, if no catastrophe awaits us in some new structure we tackle in order to fulfil desires to produce publically presentable results on the EC front. I thought the risk would be minimal with 13880, but my x-ray vision seems to become blurry after 0.50m of depth. I would like to date the floor in tench 6 by taking down the deposit above it that could reveal if the floor is indeed abutting the mudbrick 13810 under the N profile, and since grave 13872 cuts into the floor, we might be safe in taking it down to that level. Let's see if there is time.Entered By: ER |
