| Entry: | Today we had some interesting news which has affected how we will continue excavating. There is concern that we have some Islamic burials, so for now, we will be trying to avoid excavating later burials on site and instead work around them to try and get to EC architecture instead. This meant that the Turkish team that was working with us and mainly working with the burials got moved off to a different area on the mound, and a few of our team got moved to different areas in the trench. Given the political situation, this whole thing has really been going rather smoothly I think, so hopefully there will continue to be a good level of cooperation among everyone involved and we can figure out what to do in terms of excavation and possibly reburial of the skeletons.
That said, this news didn’t really impact my activity on site much, since I was continuing work taking out the fill in the large pit with Ray (Unit 15306). We cleaned out the bottom of it and found the edges of the huge rock that was in the pit, made a sketch and got some points with the total station. After breakfast, Frank lifted the rock out. There was some concern that we might find a burial after removing the rock, but luckily we haven’t found anything so far. And, given the amount of dirt that was moved out of that hole today, I doubt we will. Mainly we moved a ton of dirt because Peter came over and grabbed a trowel, pick and shovel and hacked away at the thing. It was pretty amusing. This culminated in he and Ray trying to connect two rodent burrows. However, the two didn’t connect and the one Ray was digging in turned out to be the rodent burrow directly above the one Peter was digging in. We did find the plaster line on the edges of the pit finally, so that’s good, and Peter and Eva also think they have found the floor of the pit as well.
In the afternoon, I also began digging around the edges of the animal burrow that Ros previously dug out (Unit 14218). The plaster line continues into that area from the pit we are working on. I think there is still some topsoil that can be taken off on the northern end of that area, but it looks like there is good mud brick underneath.
Today was Alex’s last day with us here at the site. I hope he has a good journey home. It was really a pleasure to meet and work with him. (In addition, since the opportunity presents itself and I have not said it before, I would like to say that I enjoy the company of everyone that I have worked with so far, and think this is really a great group of people.)
[After this train of thought is where the power went out.]Entered By: KJK |
