| Entry: | Another exciting day in Trench 5.
EMM continued excavation in the area of clustering pot sherds (15160) between wall F.5067 and buttress F.5057, producing a lot of nice complete pots, articulated animal bones and x-finds. Today she found out that the area is not a pit, but probably part of roomfill, as the cluster extends into the corner between the two features and apparently respects their outlines.
SCS and LKH started excavating the fill (15149) of burial F.3316 in the morning. Later, SCS moved to space 345 and started excavating very mixed room fill (15168) here.
LKH started excavating supposed fill (15166) in the north wall F.5067, where several plaster lines were already visible. She is following a mudbrick construction (wall? F.3324) forming a corner with F.5057 and running NS, roughly in line with wall F.5075 which seperates Spaces 345 and 447. She has been exposing the plastered northern face of F.5067 and the plastered eastern face of F.3324, which seems to form a funny niche or similar feature, which we will expose further tomorrow.
BOD continued levelling in the centre of the trench (15158), but we are still not able to make sense of the pieces of mudbrick and plaster we see. She will extend the levelling further south when EMM finished the cluster 15160 and further east when burial F.3316 is excavated.
XHB continued excavating north and east of F.3322 (15159). He exposed a larger piece of red painted plaster east of F.3322, which shows at 2-3 layers of plastering. He also found, just north of F.3322 and partially outside present trench limits, a piece of white lime plaster or floor (15171) with phytoliths on it, what might indicate matting. He is now trying to determine the relationship between 15171 and the plastered floor west of it (15170) and extenting his scraping further east.
PTW continued excavating in Space 447 (15163). He exposed F.3323, a wall defining the eastern limit of the space, connected with F.5067. Space 447 now appears as a rather small space, limited by F.5075 in the west, F.5067 in the north, F.3323 in the east and extending south beyond present trench borders. In ist southern part, the supposed buttress F.3319 is reaching into the room. Whether this is a buttress or some other mudbrick construction will be clarified when defining ist relation with F.3323. The southern part of F.3319 is outside the trench.
Today PTW reached a plastered floor in Space 447 (15167) only ca. 50-60cm below the upper limit of the structures surrounding the space. The plaster of the floor and that of the walls F.5075 and 5067 have been applied in conjunction, as is visible in some spots that are not damaged by the usual rodent holes. He also exposed a cluster of finds (F.3325) next to the northwest corner of buttress F.3319 that made everybody really excited. It is a larger reddish stone with a depression in ist upper part, looking as if it served for grinding. Under it, a horn is jutting out, possibly supported by a very hard piece of soil or stone. Whether F.3325 is a coincidence or an installlation will be clarified by defining whether it had some kind of support holding it in place, maybe connected to the plaster of F.3319 or the floor (15167). A horn, which looks similar to that of F.3325 was found floating in the fill of Space 447.
JFB finished taking out skeleton U.15155 of burial F.3318 and moved over to the human bones in F.3317 which seem very disturbed and mixed up at the moment and might even partially belong to the skeleton of F.3316 which was just above it. The bones of F.3317 are sticking in the very hard reddish mud brick of the burial (15148) and are crushed and therefore very hard to excavate.
After she finished taking out F.3318 I levelled the whole area and straightened profiles. We were expecting the southern parts of buttress F.3301 here and continuations of walls F.5058 and 2424. F.5058 is nicely visible in plan, just as the ca.7cm wide gap between F.5058 and 2424. We cut into 2424 by ca.2-3cm and now have a very nice view of ist dark blueish grey mudbricks and pale yellow mortar lines. 5058, ist section visible in the southern section of the trench extension, was constructed from the same material. The upper 10-20 of the walls under the grass are disturbed and blurred and F.3318 cut into wall F.5058. Of some interest is the eastern face of this walls and ist relation to buttress F.3301. We expected a nice thin plaster lines here defining the outlines of the features, but instead the plaster on F.5058 facing the inside Space 310 seems either very thick or forming some kind of installation jutting out into the room. The corner with buttress F.3301 is also not very rectangular. As we were in a bit of a hurry in the end of the day, I had no time to look at it in detail, but will do that tomorrow while drawing. Afterwards I'll begin excavating the fill between the features (15165), being the probably disturbed upper layer of room fill in Space 310. |
