| Entry: | The extremely windy conditions today made excavation all the more challenging. I had once complained about poor visibility in hot and dry conditions but today was worse. At times, I felt as if I was excavating blindly. However, we did come upon some great finds today.
In U. 7926 we came down upon another horn core (U. 7928). There was some question as to whether or not it was plastered. Upon excavation, we all thought it was plastered. Ian and Shahina both thought it was salt and not plaster. Wendy came around on the priority tour and took a sample- the result is still pending. The conservators came around and put some consolidate on it and later put some other stuff on it so we can lift it tomorrow.
I continued to define the plastered bench along the N. wall (U. 7927). We made a new unit for the fill that was above the platform (U. 7929) but kept it on the fast track. There was a great deal of red plastered wall fall (confirmed by Wendy) lying on top of the platform. When that came up, a localized burn was directly underneath. There appeared to be some wood charcoal and the surface of the plaster was burned. The rest of the platform is steeply sloping to the west, near the jog in the wall. Above this depression is a great deal of thick red plaster. I initially thought that the depression could have been plastered over and painted red. But Wendy thought it was just all wall fall. And there does not appear to be any clear connection with the fallen plaster with the actual wall plaster. We have yet to uncover the wall plaster in this space yet and Ian does not want me to progress with the excavation of this unit until we cut back to the wall so we can clearly see if there is a relationship or not.
The remainder of the day, UK and DGN continued in U. 7926, extending the arbitrary boundary a bit further west in attempt to find the floor level and to get the entire unit in phase. SLS and I defined badly decomposed the horn core (U. 7930), along the south wall. Once we had found the extent of it, Rissa came up and lifted it. SLS and I continued in removing the bulk room fill (U. 7925) in the southeast corner. We did not find any structures but did fine three nice white beads in the fill- out of context. We took out a great deal of volume today and hopefully tomorrow we will be able to more clearly outline the area around the other horn core (U. 7920). I expect to find a oven, or perhaps a hearth, in this area but we have not seen anything as of yet. There is a very slight hint of a circular structure but it was the end of the day, so we’ll examine it a little more closely tomorrow.Entered By: SHL |
