| Entry: | I started the day with cleaning the exposed part of west-profile of wall F5074. Then I decided to start from the top and to first remove the inter-wall fill between F5074 and F2429, so as to be able to collect it as a separate unit. And at the same time to see how the two walls are connecting to each other. The fill got the number 31124. In the west-profile it seems to be ca. 10cm wide (is it because of erosion?). However while trying to remove it, it appeared to be very thin, and quite inexistent the deeper you go. I tend to think that the wall collapsed towards north, though it is unclear whether it collapsed because of a gap or started collapsing before the wall F2429 was (therefore?) built. I further realize that the distinguishable layer of plaster on the north wall side in the west profile might not be plaster at all, maybe rather mortar. It seems indeed quite weird that this white 0,5cm thick line of limestone (?) doesn’t seem to connect with the other one that appears on a brick ca. 8cm north of it. Or it is the same plaster layer, and then it could mean that 1) the northern surface of the wall is pretty irregular or 2) that at least some bricks collapsed. The gap between this brick and the wall behind F2429 seems minimal, less than 1cm. A line of mortar of wall F5074 seems also to continue on the other side. This context was sketched and a photo was taken, but since it seems quite disturbed and very unfortunately doesn’t speak to us in a comprehensible language, we decided to move on and make a horizontal cut two bricks higher than the lower wall limit, so as not to damage it while we work on wall F2429. This was done with the pic. The eastern part of U18351 is still intact, since it somehow looks like Swiss cheese... The "situation" was photographed, we will continue working on it after we’ll have leveled wall F2429 a bit.
I continued working with DSE on wall F2429, which is still raging above our northeast corner. Two parallel ranges of bricks are separated by a vertical layer of mortar. Does this mean we have two different walls here? Or is it a thick wall of a two brick width? How it relates to the wall that can be distinguished in the northern trench profile is also still unclear. The earth is very humid, so we let it dry to be able to brush it tomorrow.
Trying to figure out how all these structures relate to each other is strikingly interesting and a challenge to the mind! It is nonetheless slightly frustrating to often discover disturbed layers or totally unclear divisions that sadly don’t speak for themselves...at least not to me! Let’s hope the walls reveal more tomorrow! |
