July 23, 2001

Now that the trench has been drawn photographed, it was time to pick axe. The southern surface, L5027, was taken down 20 centimeters (and bagged, in the case of one for the seed lady and the rest in sand bags to help prevent the baulks from collapsing every day... we plan to take down on the west side about meter when westerly trench D4 gets a bit deeper. After that 20 cm a softer (this is relative, it's still pretty tough) soil was found. The most southerly ~ 40 cm had a thin layer above a very thin ash layer and was excavated as L5041. Both loci turned up some interesting finds, including more of the white-on-black pottery that has been turning up all over the southern half of the trench, some slag (KT 5209), and a polished bone which may be some sort of seal stamp (KT 5210).

The far NE corner was also dug (L5020) and the end of the rock jumble seems to finally have been reached. Aside from the general theory of it being tumble as that was the part of the trench nearest to the topsoil, I also think there may have been some flow-through from surface L5034 when the corner of it (walls 5039 and 5037) finally gave way.

Tomorrow I hope to take 5041 (the area below it, actually) down to the level of the rest of the 5027 (which is pending redesignation). The majority of the trench is now (finally) down to approximately the same level. It would be nice to better articulate oven L5029 and start to bring the central mudbrick wall (L5031) down some more. For now it appears the northern surface is not extant in the south, which means a third wall of that area may be hidden under L5031.