June 14, 2007

Area D

Trench 6

Jason Kennedy and Barish Uzel

Today we began by removing Locus 146 in the southwest corner of the trench. Locus 146 is a floor surface that contains reed and grass pseudomorphs, and contained the fetus burial (Locus 145). Upon removing the surface we uncovered a plaster layer, of which there may have been more than one layer, however, we were unable to distinguish multiple plastering episodes. We then began to take down Locus 148 below Locus 146 in the hopes of finding architecture associated with the floor surface. Barish and I then began to define the burned surface in the northwest corner of the trench (Locus 152). After removing the burned surface we began to take down the wall in Locus 117 after determining that it did not connect to wall 131 and that we were coming down on a fill layer below it. While we completed that Shawash and Ur took down locus 150 on the east side of wall 131 with the big pick. Next we removed Locus 149 to the west of wall 131, which allowed us to discover that wall 131 was no longer connected to the Loci around it. While Barish and I removed wall 131 the workers removed locus 151 in the northern third of the trench. We then created Locus 153 for the fill below 131 and removed it. After cleaning the trench we began Locus 154 in the northern portion of the trench. There we discovered a pot burial (Locus 155) in the northeast corner of the trench. We began to remove the pot on the surface, being careful not to destroy the unbaked clay vessel in which the burial was sitting. After determining that the burial did in fact contain a fetus we wrapped up for the day, leaving the burial to be removed on Saturday.