Week 5 Summary--Week ending August 2, 2001

Whereas last week was occupied with cutting down the trench to confirm or disprove our theories about what lay above, this week was about cutting the trench down to what lies beneath. Unfortunately, we only had one real guide to what we might find, a SW-NE mudbrick (very well preserved where we found it) wall coming out of the south baulk (L5045). All this week was spent trying to find various ways this feature may connect to other ones, and alas, didn't. This was confounded by the presence of areas of sand and loose silt/clay fill resembling the remains of water building up against walls and evaporating (L5038 and L5054, respectively) which had seemed to indicate there might be a large architectural feature along the entire trench (which there still may be, but it's not clear yet). Whatever is going on in the trench, it does not to be appear to be similar in form to what was above it.

Some sense does appear to be coming from wall L5045, in that it now seems it goes a short distance into the trench (~ 1.5 m) then comes to a T. This is not a final decision on the matter, though, as an oven on the W (no locus yet) and a large root scar on the E confound full understanding of the wall.

Otherwise, interesting, though at this time inconclusive soil texture and color differences are appearing about the trench. However, more digging will probably be required to understand their contexts.

Finally, a deep ( > .5 m) ash pit (L5047) is being excavated in the NW corner which was sealed by surface L5034 and wall L5039 and is producing some nice pottery and bones. It also brings the grand total of trench corners occupied by pits to 3. I will be digging in the NE corner to find the pit that symmetry demands be there sometime next week.