8 August 2000

We began by finishing leveling out the west half of the trench L2041. It looks as though there is some mudbrick on the north side of L2041 called L2044. After scraping and sweeping we definitely have mudbrick walls, probably a continuation of L2037 and L2038. Once we remove the north/south wall L2023 we should see L2044 and L2037 and L2038 connect.

While deciding how to approach L2023, our north/south mudbrick wall, we dig 10 cm lower in L2039. At the bottom of this locus we found a rock alignment following the southeast trend of L2040.

One of the biggest questions I had today was the nature of L2023, and if it had any relation to the mudbricks found in L2037 and L2038. I also wanted to know how many courses L2023 has. in order to answer this last question, I sectioned the wall into a new locus L2043 on the west side where the bricks were best exposed and found that L2023 has definitely 4 courses and perhaps 5. I suspect however that this fifth course is actually L2037 running underneath L2023. This because the color of this "course" is the same as L2037.

Before this section L2043 was taken, however, I had a plan photo taken of L2023 knowing that it would be removed today.

I finally named the rock alignment found near the center of the trench (L2042) and took opening elevations.

At the bottom of the section L2043, we found another rock alignment running parallel to L2042 with 2 courses of mudbrick between them. This looks to be a continuation of L2037. When we remove L2023, we should see its relationship to the rest of the mudbricks in the trench.

After investigating the mortar lines of L2023 and L2037 I saw that they didn't match up and that L2023 runs more north/south proper and L2037 runs more in a north, northwest direction. Therefore L2023 looks to be a later phase of construction.

Finally, we began to remove L2023 and will finish that job tomorrow.