| Entry: | Today was our last official day of digging. SF informed us that we are to stop where we are and proceed with recording everything because there is a good chance that we will not be back in this building next year. Makes sense. I did not write an entry for Friday (press day, 30-7) so I need to back track a bit. SLS excavated F.1652 which turned out to be a nice plaster lined bin with a horn core stuck in it. The basin itself looks as if it might have 4 phases to it. Originally, we thought this might have been a stepping platform because of all the collapsed plaster and its location on the south wall. But as it was excavated it most definitely was a basin. The outer plaster rim was well preserved and appears to be contemporary with the final phase of the building's occupation, as it sits upon the truncated surface that seems to be the last one built in this space. The surface runs through the basin, confirming that the basin was built ontop of it. However, this was not the final stage of the basins usage. There is another plastered arm extending off the right corner that may have attached to something else or have represented a later extension. Also, there is a plastered red brick that is attached to the south wall (right corner) that looked as if it may have also once extended all the way around the basin. The one relationship that we have not yet been able to determine is its association or connection with the southwest partition wall. This connection is not as clear because there is a plastered brick/surface jutting out and we are not clear what this brick is associated with. Also, the arm to the other basin (U.7950) is intersecting F.1652. Again, we have not been able to determine which of these basins came first or if they are contemporary; they might be contemporary because they both appear to have been built on the same truncated surface but the connection to the partition wall and the south wall are still unexcavated and unclear. I excavated a little more of the plaster line of the arms of the basin U.7950 and was able to establish that the plaster connects with the plastered surface (U.7944) and it seems to connect with the line running across the space between the two surviving bits of what we are calling the partition wall.
DGN excavated the collapsed oven (U.7949) and found it to be rather shallow and well defined on the west and east side. He dug U.7962 back to the south wall to remove some remaining junk and discovered that the plaster was indented in the wall and excavated out a large scoop. The full extent to this is still not clear to me yet so I'll make more note of it later.
I also just had a long chat with Roddy on single-context recording and realised that we did not plan our units and features like that. Oops. I have limited experience of single context recording and have not previously worked with archaeology quite this complex. I suppose we are not at a complete loss since most of our units consisted of room fill and arbitrary layers out of caution. However, one thing I did notice today was that I wish I had been more diligent and detailed with my diary entries. We have had so many conversations in the space concerning the relationships between units and features and how thing relate to each other in phase. Only speaking for myself, I am not convinced that my previous entires did any of those 'real time' conversations any justice. I suppose that is the point of a 'reflexive methodology'- to live and learn (or trowel and error)? I now know what to do for next year; I just hope that we are able to re-create what we excavated this year as accurately as the day it was first exposed.Entered By: SHL |
