August 3, 2001

Today was a short day because it was the Islamic holy day so we had to let our workers leave early to get to their midday prayers. I was extremely tired, though, so I didn't mind too much.

Anyhow, for the day I had my workers cut the entire northern portion of the trench level, as all the architecture and surfaces had been removed in the previous two days. In some areas this meant taking the soil, which for vast majority of the area (L5054) was soft fill with some pottery and occasional ash, but very little bone or lithics. From my first look at the fully cleaned area at the end of the day it appears that much of the area is either very soft fill, though more brown than the gray/blue soil that had been above, with charcoal inclusions. My guess at the moment is that either there is some large pit or group of pits in the area, or possibly build-up behind a large wall, or maybe even a large destruction layer. The latter, though we'll have to see about further evidence for that later, might explain the layers of accumulated sand and clay/silt build-up above the current level as there may have been a prolonged period of non-use following the destruction.

As for the south, I was going over the area with a fine-toothed comb (trowel) to try and make some more sense of the area. My only real worry about the area is that I may never make sense of SW-NE wall L5045, because though it is good going into the S-baulk, if it corners (which I think it does), the place it would hit the E or W section is confounded stratigraphically by a pit or oven. If it doesn't corner, then it quickly gets lost. Either way, my plan for the area is the same, excavate the oven on the W side of the wall (L5055) then slowly bring the whole area down until I'm confident the wall is pedestled, and then take it out.