| Entry: | Thursday 21 August, 1997
Peggy: finish cleaning grave F. 154. Photo. Draw it. Its feet and lower legs are under the main N-S baulk. Peter comes to take a DNA sample. Now it's ready for removal.
On the south side of F. 154 Anne-Marie is cleaning the surface so well that we can see more red and black concentric lines in the fill of our possible roof (bottom of unit 2220) going in SSW-NNE direction.
West of the midden in unit 2239 (Sonya and Peggy), the northern edge seems different - I wonder if this is a continuation of the larger grave-pit for Feature 153 (unit 2240/2241).
Dorothy comes to do our first interview in the Bach area. I introduce our area. Everyone loves our burials with the little glass vials. I also point out the possible roof (it's probably hard to see this in the video). And of course the bukranion.
Ian is back. He seems pleased with our progress, everyone talks about how fast we are going (of course we are paranoid that this means we are going too fast). Ian wants the bukranion in place, visible and revealed for the "show" on Sept. 2. This will conflict with the faunal gang who want the bukranion lifted whole, since to do this Frank would have to cover it with unsightly plaster-of-Paris. We give Ian the job of breaking the news to them that maybe they will get to study the bukranion in fragments.
Finish cleaning the last post-Neo grave (F. 153). This a much deeper grave than the other four and its pit seems to be dug in two stages (pit within the pit). Anne-Marie cleans the part of the grave that extends east of the main N-S baulk in whose profile the two pits show up really clearly. Photo and draw this. I wonder how far south the outer pit extends. I think I've seen part of it in the north edge of 2227, but maybe I imagined it. We need to scrape the bottom of 2220, but we can't until the grave itself is emptied and until the white central blob feature is removed.
Big news here that National Geographic are visiting today. But instead of some grand delegation I see it's my old friend Henry Wright! He and his companion arrive right at the moment when I am struggling with a very hard yellow-on-yellow (one of many) problem. I can't even remember which it was at this moment, but it prevented me from getting up and greeting them. So they wandered off. But they came back with the specialist tour. And I am so delighted to meet Arlene Rosen finally - the queen of tell geoarchaeology (after Wendy). Now she's focusing on phytoliths - currently in Kazakhstan. A pity that Wendy just left for Ankara - they would have enjoyed meeting each other (I think). The specialists are in a hurry today - no priorities in our area. meanwhile I give NGS the third tour of Bach today. Henry W immediately says that he has seen a similar collapsed roof in the SW USA kivas. Frank said the same thing yesterday.
Now here's a complication! Dusan has found a pit that looks like the end of another post-Neolithic grave immediately to the west of grave Feature 150 and much deeper. In fact it appears to be going under the west wall of space 86. If it is another post-Neolithic grave it must have cut this west wall, but the wall does not appear to be broken there, although it does change its orientation at that point and this is the one part of the walls of space 86 that has no plaster on its inner surface. Maybe the Byzantines (?) cut the wall for the grave and replaced the bricks over the grave. We didn't notice any grave, however, in our surface scrape. Dusan digs out the part of the pit that is protruding out of the 10 cm baulk that we have left for the west wall (unit 2242/2243). It's quite shallow. At the same time we go deeper in the SE corner of space 86 (unit 2250). This means digging through silky grey/plastery fill of unit 2230. We have to know what this little pit is all about.
After lunch, more visitors: the assistant director of the British School at Athens. She suggests that our little glass unguentaria can't be Hellenistic. Most likely late Roman or early Byzantine. So I give yet another tour of our area! This is the day for the general site tour. I join the tour but then have to give yet another tour of our area. By this time a little germ of an idea first thing this morning has become during the day a great theory which I expound for the general site tour. I am trying to convince them and myself that the post-Neolithic grave-diggers saw and used Neolithic architectural features to help them dig their holes (or else give their holes further meaning); I thought I observed that every grave was dug with at least one side being provided by a Neolithic wall, or plaster face. Well, Mira rebuts me quite fiercely. So be it - multiple hypothesis building in action!Entered By: Ruth Tringham |
