| Entry: | I finished excavating the second spit of room fill in Space 310 today (18318). The four clusters 18319, 18320, 18321 and 18323 are fully exposed now. Photos were taken and I started to draw the situation.
The soil between the clusters was treated as 18318 in terms of volume count, but was sieved separately and the finds from the sieve were also collected with the number of the relevant cluster. I tried to clarify if the soil between the artefacts of the cluster is different from the rest of the room fill; this does not seem to be the case, however.
One more sample was taken from 18318, a red and crumbly stone (S12, in between clusters 18320 and 18321). One fragment of a bone tool appeared in 18318 (X1) which seems to belong together with X4 of 18323 although the two do not join directly. The fill also contained some tiny fragments of unfired pottery which were found in between 18320 and 18321.
Now that all the sherds, animal bones and artefacts that make up the clusters are fully exposed, the space between them has shrunk to a few centimeters. I kept the unit numbers, though, because finds had already been sent into the finds lab with those numbers. The clusters are still visible as dense accumulations of artefacts separated from the next accumulation by a few centimeters; I do not believe, however, that every cluster represents one separate activity, such as one bucket of waste dumped into the space. 18323, 18320 and 18319 make up one "belt" of artefacts along the N and E wall of Space 310. Maybe I will generate more ideas about how all the artefacts relate to each other tomorrow while drawing. Each cluster will be drawn 1:10 (09/219-222) and I also want to do an overview drawing to document the relationship between the clusters (09/218). The drawings will also show the spots where samples were taken from. IF recommended that I indicate the angles by which the sherds stick in the fill by arrows on the drawing and I will try to do that tomorrow.
18321 still has roughly the same outlines as before it was exposed. Some of the sherds sit right next to the butress which runs into the S sectioh. It contains two stone artefacts (X1-2) and one reddish stone whose sides are flat (X5). IF, passing by, identified it as a hematite stone which was ground in order to create pigments for pottery production. This would fit very neatly with the fact that the supposed grinding plate was also found right here (X1 of 18321 and the second fragment in the pottery bag of 18316 which was on top of 18321 and 18320).
18320 has expanded towards the SE. It consists mostly of pot sherds, and some animal bones were found as well. Two halves of pots lay next to each other.
18319 has expanded at bit towards the W, but not by much. Two large animal bones belong to this cluster.
18323, already exposed yesterday, is the cluster which covers the largest area. It reaches further towards NW as compared to the situation before excavation. It contained the most artefacts (four). The soil in between contains one piece of red painted plaster and most samples were taken from here which, however, rather reflects the process of excavation as this was the first part of 18318 which I excavated very carefully. 18323 also contains several large animal bones. S9 of 18318, a sample taken from in between cluster 18323 yesterday turned out to be a sherd of unfired pottery. This is nice, as my impression that the clay looked very sherd-like has now been verified. This unfired sherd was sitting right on top of another, burnt, sherd.
We finally attached one more strip of textile in the S of the tent so that Sp310 and 342 are now in the shade during the whole day. It was already a great relief today while taking photos and starting the drawing. |
