| Entry: | Monday August 2, 1999
2 workers are making bricks, 1 is on duty at the shelter
Roger and Wendy are back
Floor and Platforms
Strategy to re cord profiles of floors: the main profiles through the floors in the N-S and E-W control baulks will be recorded by drawing and photo. After excavation of each quadrant, the profiles on the meter grid that are not on the main baulk will be photoed but not drawn and then removed. A small control baulk will be left in each corner for Wendy to take samples.
Paolo moves to a quad in F.606 SW kitty-corner from the platform quad he excavated yesterday. In this unit (6106) the uppermost floor overlay black fill especially in the SE part. The black soil filling underneath was removed as a separate unit (**). Once Paolo had removed the upper floor and packing below, the floor that was exposed revealed a very pretty pattern (first noticed by Mira) of tiny (2 cm diameter) pits in a circle around a scorched area - is this some kind of fire installation?
Mira notes that some kind of fire/heat presence is noted at different levels in three places in F.606 (see also units 3682 and 6102).
Roger tackles the enigmatic SE corner of F. 606. He excavates a blob of matrix still remaining above the latest floor (6107). When this is cleared it reveals the edge of some kind of wall or platform edge in the SE corner - probably west edge of F. 167. But it may have something to do with the ladder fixture that is surmised for this area. To this end, Roger has also noted a definite round indentation in the latest floor itself. The fill of this is excavated as a separate unit (6109). The floor itself is excavated (6110) above fill which will be excavated separately.
Cuts through floors and platforms
Platform F 169 Alex cleans out third little pit F 605, no babies. Goes down a bit deeper.
Pit F. 602 (3589) seems to have thick layers of greasy grey plaster all around it. Big blob of this seems to be in secondary position in X-section. So we whack at it - aagh! A cow skull is attached to its underside. The skull is upside down - faunas have a look at it and are not overly impressed. We give it an X-find (x7) and cover it with plastic and proceed downwards. Now in NE corner I clean a curved (horn-shaped) slab of the same grey greasy plaster. At first I think this is the horn decoration of a bukranion going with the cow skull. But it extends deeper than expected and is associated with an oval shaped circle of the same stuff with concentric rings. Now the interpretations fly - is it a lid of a bin which belongs to a lower level? But the X-section shows we are in pit fill!
Wendy comes up after lunch and has an excellent explanation - we are looking at a plaster cow head buried snout down in the pit. What is going on?! So we clean back edges definitively of pit and clean inside. Photo. Tomorrow we'll draw and remove the X-section.
Screen Wall
Eleni comes to look at the wood impressions and charcoal and screen wall construction (see Mira's diary).
West wall (see Mira's diary for details)
Extend E-W baulk to west side of Building 3. Scrape packing west of screen wall. At s end Heidi has some kind of plaster feature, but probably in secondary position.
Space 87
Anne Marie and Casey continue downwards, cleaning around group of white plaster slabs (in secondary position)
Space 89
Ana is excavating dark brown soil (with burning) in space 87 east of the light brown compact possible platform thing in the center of the room.
Chicken and chips for supperEntered By: Ruth Tringham |
