| Entry: | Third day of excavation in West Trench 5 for this year.
On 1/8 we started by cleaning the eastern part of the trench, where sandbags had already been taken out. The western part, Spaces 343, 342 and 310 still have sandbags in them.
After cleaning, EMM and SCS started excavating room fill in space 341. Last year we did not work in this space, so the fill has been drying out for two years. After removing 15 cm (15139), several darker spots appeared which probably represent mudbrick structures. It seems as if the base of the wall and buttress limiting the space in the south and east, F. 5056 and 5057, is already visible and older structures are visible underneath. This older wall and older buttress are jutting out further into the space than the younger ones and are easily visible because they have crumbly brown mortar. The two walls and two buttresses on top, F. 5054, 5055, 5056, 5057, have no bricks or mortar visible. So far there are no older walls under F.5054 and 5050 visible. This will be clarified when excavating the room fill further (15152). Two darker and roughly rectangular spots are also visible next to buttresses F.5054, 5057. What they are will probably also become clearer when going down.
BOD and LKH excavated room fill in Space 340 (15137). Its very mixed fill contained quite some pieces of white and red plaster. Afterwards, LKH scraped in order to define outlines of buttress F.5052. At the present level, a rectangular spot of dark mud brick, surrounded by a plaster line, is visible in front of the already defined outlines of the buttress. We will have to check whether this is an earlier phase of the buttress or some other structure.
JFB and XHB started extending the trench towards east by 2m (15138). While excavating topsoil, human bones started to appear and JFB is now excavating F.3317 what seems to be a disturbed or secondary burial. BOD today started scraping the surface around another burial (F.3316) which had so far not been completely in the trench, trying to define its outlines (15146).
PTW and me are extending the trench towards south (15140) in order to define the continuation of Spaces 310 and 345. The outlines of buttresses F.3301 and 3302 are nicely visible, as surrounded by plaster, as well as the continuation of wall F. 2427. |
