| Entry: | I have a lot of back logged entries to do as that this is my first this season.
I arrived on the 26th of June, and began digging on the 25th in Building 59 with Mike and James. This is the building that I had ended in last season. However, Mike and I had not been able to finish removing the infill, and this was done by Simon and David who stayed an extra month to excavate. Building 59 is much more massive than we had thought it would be when we did a quick scrape of the surface to follow walls. One of the interesting features that I excavated in building 59 was the in fill (14617) of a bin (F.2383). The in fill seems to be layered and the bin was changed and re-plastered which could be seen in the north western corner which had been truncated. The make-up of the bin was on both sides of the plaster, which disappeared as it came closer to the southern wall. There is a plaster layer which seems to have gone over part of the bin, which has been seen in the past, and due to the truncation of the bin it is impossible to say for sure, but it almost looks as though the bin was filled and plastered over completely, perhaps to serve as a seat.
I moved to the foundation trenches when the floors of space 313 and 316 were locked in by a corner where not all of us even had the possibility of fitting to dig, since at this point there were about 8 people excavating building 59.
I started out in Trench 10, which was midden (15400), which was wonderful and easy to remove, though as that almost all the trenches hit some sort of burial, it wasn’t a big surprise to see bits of wood of a coffin (15420), which also meant that I had missed the grave cut [15421]. The day after I had started to excavate the burial fill (15412), we had the conflict of the Islamic burials, and whether or not we would be able to excavate the Islamic burials, or any late burials.
And thus I moved over to Trench 9. Even after just brushing off the topsoil I could see the walls (F.2806: units 15463, 15464, F.2807: units 15461, 15462) that continued from Trench 8. The interesting thing about this double wall was that they turned in the same direction in the corner, which does happen occasionally, such as in Building 59 for the storage room (space 276). There was also what appeared to be a grave cut on the western side of the trench which I was to pedestal until we got the news on what was to be done about the late burials. After removing the thin layer of midden (15407), a couple room fill layers (15469, 15478) I was able to find the base of the walls which came onto another room fill layer (15496). After removing the walls, we were given the okay to excavate the graves and I began chasing the grave cut [15436]. It seemed like the cut was curving and I began to wonder if perhaps it wasn’t a grave cut, or more hope. I began to dig down at the bottom of the grave cut in the pedestaled part with Aneise. He found the rim of a pot and some glass that was sadly so thin that when touched it just broke into little shards. But this informed us that it was a grave, and that it was not Islamic since it had grave goods. The grave fill (15605), which was shallow and came onto the skull only about 30cm below the surface. This is the first skeleton (F.2845, 15608) I have ever excavated, and it is turning out to be an interesting one. It is a little toothless old man. He has no teeth, the lower mandible has the indents, but no teeth in the mandible, or even around the skull. The skeleton is in quite good condition and articulated, which makes it easier to follow. Another interesting little bit is that on both the left and the right, his ribs are splayed open, with a few that have fallen in, almost as though his chest exploded. I will probably finish exposing the skeleton tomorrow, and then a human remains expert will come to plan and lift it.
The weather this season has been really strange. I have been here for four seasons (2000, 2005, 2006, 2007), and there has never been a season like this, granted I didn’t dig in 2000 or 2005, so I wouldn’t have noticed the weather quite so much. This season has been incredibly windy and fairly cool most days, though there are also the usual hot and still days, which sadly are preferable because at least then you don’t have dust blowing into your eyes all day. There have also been some pretty impressive dust devils, one lifted a planning board and ripped off the plan and sent it flying into the air. Hopefully tomorrow will be less windy, it will certainly make excavating easier.Entered By: Marina Lizarralde |
