| Entry: | Today was the third complete day in the little building just east of Ulrike’s space. It has been a while since I have not written in this journal, but things just started catching up with me and I have had little time. We started working in this small area, space 233 and 234 on Wednesday the 14th of July. Actually this year I was not expecting to excavate a full house, so when Ian and Shahina thought it was appropriate for me to give excavation training to the Berkeley field school I was very happy.
The area had already been cleared by Emma and her team the previous week, so we were set with a building with defined walls that showed plastering towards their bottom. The first day we were quite sure that we were in building fill, so I set Sheila and Medha in the small room to the north (space 234) and placed myself and Val and Ona in the larger room (space 233) to start clearing things. Many wheelbarrow trips were made – and I think everyone got a fare share of exercise.
As I was quite engaged with the space I was in, I forgot about Medha and Sheila – and when I checked their progress later on I saw that they had excavated a bit too deep in the Western part of the small room. Then it hit me that we were not far from floor levels across the building…
The next day was a day of confusion for me – after a good cleaning, despite the fact that we had already hit some features in space 233 there were problems with the walls – the plastered surfaces did not connect with the mud brick and mortar that was lying on top of them. It was a slow day, and I was glad it was a Thursday.
Yesterday was the day the confusion finally went away. After a good cleaning around the walls, the sections etc, I (finally!) realized that we had a later building built on top of an earlier building. This later building’s walls jutted about 4 cm outward from the earlier wall. The earlier buildings walls were probably used as a foundation. This later building’s (building 46) southern wall was cut by another wall on Emma’s side. So, cleaned and planned the southern and western wall (F1800 and F1801), and finally started removing them today. Finally there is some progress.
By the way, the shelter is great, Sheila is not coming up here anymore, Ona is helping Pedja, so I am with Medha and Val. Sercen joined us today. We also have not done any work in the smaller space as it is still muddy...Entered By: Burcu Tung |
