Daily Trench Journal

Area D

Trench 5

July 18, 2002

There were three main thrusts to today’s work: 1) Try and made some sense out of the far N via sounding L5113; 2) Continue to bring the central region of the trench down in segments; and 3) Continue to expose organic feature/surface L5098 to the E and N of its current revealed extent, as general excavation depth allows.

The first goal went well but without clearing issues up too well. There is perhaps (another!!!) large ash pit in the NE, which in turn may be chopped up by surface tumble in its far NE extent.

In the central portion things also went well, if somewhat slowly. We are exposing some more large pot sherds that are probably from the same pot as some previously removed sherds, lending more credibility to the thick area of collapse theory. It looks as though the area contains 40-50 cm of contemporary mudbrick-filled collapse, which also helps to explain why the fabric and organic surface are so well preserved.

Finally, in the central-S things went pretty much as expected as feature L5098 continues to be exposed to the N and E. Of note, more painted potsherds looking to be of the same vessel as L5108.7 and L5108.9 were revealed in the grain material and lying against the N wall of the S mudbrick structure. A good reconstruction of the vessel may well be possible.