| Entry: | Day 3-
Forgive my grammar, I am very sleepy!...
Started the day being back on the platform I was on yesterday in the North West corner. We continued to mattock away the surface of the platform, stopping occasionally to clean the area making sure that we were not going to mattock straight through a grave. I was feeling quite tired, but Naomi and I made good progress.. Peter helped us trowel through the barrow to check for missed finds. A lot of material was coming out of the ground, including some large pieces of Chalcolithic pottery. I was definitely thankful for the shelter, as it was turning out to be a hot day.
After a nice lunch under the tree (although I possibly ate to much and ants were being annoying), we continued to clean our surface. In the North east corner, pieces of white, chalk-like material were deposited throughout the layer, including some lines. A block came up with my trowel, that looked like it was possibly plaster. Some more human bone was coming up, so we proceeded with caution. Once the area had been totally cleaned, we could see a darker area to the east side, and mud bricks were visible in the east-west profile, along with a yellow-ish band along the north end of the limit of excavation.
After lunch, a tired Naomi and I worked on the platform still. I excavated the mud bricks, while she worked on the black area. By feeling for the harder areas, I dug away the soil from the mud brick, uncovering a large number of animal burrows that have truncated and disturbed it. Down the west side there is interestingly darker soil, that I am going to investigate tomorrow.
While Naomi and I were doing this, we looked on jealously at Alex and Katie who had uncovered a burial. But, right at the end, Naomi started uncovering what looked like a leg bone, but the question of 'is it actually a burial, or just an animal burrow with brought in human bone?' still remains, but peter is still optimistic, and I would like to get a skeleton. So, fingers crossed.
In one of the animal burials we have a part of a baby's cranium, and in the platform deposit, a nice base of painted Chalcolithic painted pottery was found (with some soil with potential plaster within it). Also, there was a beautiful piece of obsidian that looks like it was a blade that was taken off a prismatic core, and was really smooth and almost see-through.
A day with a large number of finds, and very hot weather. I am now very tired. Lets hope for less ants tomorrow. At least I wasn’t munched on in a, erm, embrrassing area like Alex!Entered By: RJW |
