| Entry: | Wendy and Evan discussed the sampling strategy of the ochre dust (1525) first thing this morning. The spread is going to be half sectioned but the lower layers also have to go down in half section before Wendy can take her micromorph. section. Evan took a sample for thin section purposes and the rest on the north side I scraped up as a pigment sample.I then tried to take this side down but I was supervising Ali in space 107 and Cicek in 108, Naomi wasn't able to come to site today, Anwen had begun to remove the east wall of space 106 so couldn't be spared and the day just got steadedly more chaotic ending with me loosing my temper with Naomi at 2.50pm because she wants the labels cut up smaller. Labels are this weeks problem, not only do we have to cut them up ourselves, they've now run out, if they are cut up any smaller there would certainly be enough for two per bag but will all the endless information fit? Anyway, the step and floors either side of it (Spaces 107 and 108) is getting more and more complex, in such a small area you woudn't believe. The pigment lies over surface (1531) of floor (1532), however the floor is a very patchy skim of mud but its difficult to differentiate from the underlying 'make up/levelling' deposit. It is however a very clear horizon which must have had some activity, possibly a very worn floor, hopefully Wendy will clarify this once we've finihed excavating. On the other side of the step in space 108 Cicek cut the section back through the floors to a new defined section line for Wendy, there are therefore several units on the go that several people have had dealings with. She took off floors (1084), but an equivalent (1512) or (1532) couldn't be traced, in the meantime at differing horizons through these floors were 'drops' of red paint, Wendy wanted them cleaned and photographed to prove we'd not hacked through more and in fact she and Evan were able to trace complete drips or splashes in situ. Underlying the floors was 'make up/levelling (1537), which appears to abut the threshold step (1548) which is actually brick and appears to overlie floor (1532) to the east but no equivalent floor to the west. The section will reveal all. A fair amount of work has still to be done and it really needs attention from someone who knows what they're doing, it's not really something that a student can be left to. The students really need to work on a one to one student, archaeologist ratio. Mira didn't work on her wall again, it was too damp to saw this morning because of yesterdays rain. Ali excavated the bulk in space 107 and then drew the section. Anwen finished taking the bulk out of 106 and has begun excavating the east wall, feature 58. Jon had to go and check the KOPAL trench in the afternoon which meant Awnen could work on her wall without getting in his way too much. Mary and Roddy have also started taking their wall down and all in alll it's proving to be quite interesting. Now that we've begun on these walls we might be able to get a defintive wall recording sheet together. So far a wall gets a feature number and the wall is described on a wall sheet, within that units are allcated to a change of brick and mortar, we also try to separate the brick and mortar for sampling. Not rally sure whether this is the right way to tackle the walls, is it too time consuming and how much information will it give? Mary and Roddy reckon their wall came first, this is on the basis (at the moment) that thier wall has an overhang which Anwens wall respects. But it's early days yet and lots questions need to be adressed concerning the phasing and rebuilds.Entered By: Shahina Farid |
