| Entry: | Today was not a lucky day for computers. Serena's diary entry got deleted after she had written two pages already . . . very frustrating.
Onsite, the situation is also a little confusing. Even though we are still in the same unit number (a fact which I am a little uncomfortable with), the archaeology of Space 100 is getting increasingly complicated. The late burial is out (7919), and we are slowly trying to peel back the fill (7913) to expose more features. We already have what looks like a basin or two, some bins, a possible intentional deposit of cattle bone in a plaster surface (7922) and most significantly, of course, two horn cores (no unit numbers yet). The one near (perhaps in?) the east wall has preserved plaster on it; the one near the south wall is in really bad condition. The conservators are working on both of them. We were still fast track today, but I hope to change that tomorrow. We are down to features in several parts of the trench, but still have lots more fill to dig. It is hard to recognize some of it - as we get closer to the floor, the fill is getting more compact and lighter in color. While Ian and Shahina keep suggesting we mattock it out, the team is a little more cautious - we don't want to plow throuh any important features, and that is making us overly cautious. The light conditions don't help a whole lot: after breakfast, the sunlight and the heat make it impossible to see and dry out the soil instantly. We are anxiously awaiting the shelter that will soften the bright sunlight and the direct heat.
We didn't seem to be making much progress in understanding the room today, even though we made some progress taking fill out. I have adopted a different plan for tomorrow: we will clean the space with trowels first thing in the morning, and plan it in immediately as we see it while the light is still good. Then we assign a whole new set of unit numbers based on what we see, take levels, etc. From tomorrow, I want to medium-track all deposits - even what we think might be fill. That way, I hope, nothing will get lost even if it does slow us down. I don't want to touch the horn cores quite yet - once the shelter is up, we can peel back to the wall plaster & determine any possible relationship between it and attached features. With this I hope to see whether some of the harder, lighter deposit we have come across & generally cleaned around, just in case they may be features, could possibly just be extremely compact, fallen debris.Entered By: UK |
