| Entry: | Today I finally closed unit 15174 after working on it over the past week by first drawing and then removing the final finds on the base of the unit. In the process of removing the finds two more artefacts worthy of X find status, another lump of ground stone and a large piece of obsidian, were found beneath the South western cluster of pottery taking the grand total of X finds to 24 and showing the interesting and unusual nature of this room fill. The large amount of pottery and artefacts linked to pottery production in this unit strongly indicates that this area was used for pottery production and perhaps this in turn was linked to the large number of unfired clay balls in the adjacent space 445. As it is unlikely that a floor will be found in this space in this season and there are surprisingly few days of excavation left this area was closed for this year.
After this I then began to help JMB excavate the burials which have now appeared. I briefly began with the juvenile burial U. 15385 however due to the discovery of another burial I then took over the disturbed burial U.15391. The majority of this burial will have to be left in the side of the trench as there is not enough time to extend the excavation but for now we are just concentrating on removing the few bones in the excavation area as quickly as possible. This burial is badly disturbed and since I began to help with this unit only small scattered bones have been found. Hopefully this will be finished tomorrow and then the intact juvenile burial can be resumed which should provide a fasciniating experience into the process of excavating a complete burial.
Due to the various units that I worked on today (in stark contrast to being in the same space for over a week!) I didn't get the chance to settle into excavation properly and sorting through all the different finds at the end was particularly hectic but after this transition day it should be good to once again focus on a particular space when it comes to excavating the burials and gaining a very different excavation experience than had I stayed in Space 345. |
