August 6, 2000

This is a new Trench! We decided to excavate this new trench, which is located on the east side slope of the tepe (close to facing Tigris), about 15 m down from the top of the tepe. This side has a steep slope, but the area D is somewhat flat and sticks out, like a small bump. The initial thinking was to find a earlier occupation, such as Uruk period. The location of the Trench 1 was chosen randomly and Trench 2 is made at the North side. Because of the steep slope, it was difficult to set-up a stright trench. After we have the total station, we could be more accurate.

Locus 1000 This locus represent the top-soil and washed/eroded layer. The east side of the trench is about 1.5 m lower than the West side. North-South does not have much angle. Because of this slope, there will be deep zone of disturbance in top area of this trench. The purpose of this locus is to create a leveled ground. However, I did not wanted to level the entire trench in one shot, so decided to divide the trench into East and West half. I put the line across 2 m from the East and made the workers level the East half first and the West half later. This will create an arbitrary step at the center of the trench (ideally 75 cm high wall). In this way, I could see the profile at the center and decide rather it will be a better idea to excavat the entire trench at one time. If the west half of the trench is in disturbed area, I should level the surface and keep on excavating. However, if I find some kind of undisturbed area, I have to devise a new plan. In any case, dividing the trench, I think, will be a safe-guard against distroying an area of occupational level.

This locus had many pot sherds, mainly from lower elevation (not near surface), and some bones. Found several flakes, so it might be an indication of earlier occupation (but pottery does not suggest that idea? mainly Hellenistic?). There was a concentration of several large rocks at the SW corner of the trench (about 25 cm from both south and west) , but it is most likely a random concentration of rocks. It does not follow any shape; it is placed irregulary. We found no large rocks at the East half of the trench, and we leveled the East half today. We will be working on the West half tomorrow. Anyway, West half seems to contain more large rocks, I do not know why. Also, at the near end of the day, Ihsan found concentration of the large fragments of pot sherds and some large rocks. It does not seems to represent any surface or non-disturbed area, but I will clean the surface and see what is going on around. It is too close to the surface so my suggestion is to just go deeper! In first several levels, I will try and push myself to excavte faster and deeper (but try not to destroy any cultural levels); the answer lies below!