Daily Trench Journal

Area D

Trench 5

July 15, 2002

I was one worker short today, so progress was a little slow.

L5099 and some of L5100 were excavated several centimeters and L5099 is beginning to look like perhaps some sort of pebble/stone filled wall with mudbricks on the outside. The only problem with this theory is that the apparent orientation, SW-NE, is contrary to that of the rest of the Ubaid structure contexts to which we believe it is associated. Obviously, this brings into question whether the two are contemporary or sequential, but hopefully further digging will clear up these contexts’ relation.

In the SE, the area N of the old oven of the mudbrick structure was excavated as L5108, but revealed little new information. The exact position of the oven’s N wall remains unclear.

In the N part of the trench, the central-N was excavated about 5-10 centimeters. Several remnants of what may be a surface or wall were discovered, but nothing continuous or substantial enough to be traced. As such, the remnants were removed after being photographed.

Also, the higher organic feature, L5095, was finally removed, revealing some mudbrick collapse underneath. L5085 was also excavated to reveal what is either a nasty pit or something contemporary with the other contexts but on the other side of a wall. Regardless, the pits and relative closeness of the surfaces continue to make things confusing in the N part of the trench.