Kenantepe 2005         Page 1

Datum: 587.95 (located to the NW of D.5)

Trench: D.5

Date: May 31, 2005

We started w/ small pick today so that the trench would have even surface and show if there were anything worth to investigate further. At the end of yesterday, we had we hit some small size pebbles in the S part of the trench. After examining these stones carefully, it turned out to be the sub structure of a heavily burned plaster surface. We also found that this plaster surface was built on top of an earlier one. The earlier plaster surface was also burned heavily but it is much better preserved with its edge at the E side meeting with the destroyed wall of a hearth. Thus, these two plaster surfaces represent a hearth with almost circular shape (ca. 1.20 meter in diameter). The wall of the hearth is not really visible, but in the E side, there is burned mud-brick (yellowish and orange coloration) without outer edge, which seems to me that it had about 12cm width. Hopefully, this colorful edge will be visible as the wall of the hearth.

Surfaces: The later surface (L.5225) had small pebbles (3-6 cm) densely placed until an even surface was made. Also some coarse sand was used to achieve this goal. The pebbles did not have angular edges indicating that they were brought in from Tigris. The plaster is about 1 cm thick and it seems to me that it was made only once and used only one period of time without any re-plastering until it had gone out of use. Its height was 4 cm.

The earlier surface (L.5227) was constructed slightly different from the later one. The gravels used for the sub structure was the same in size and shape but no coarse sand was used to fill the empty spaces in between them. The gravels were laid on top of the hard, clayey soil that was discolored from heavy firing process of the hearth and turned into light pink and orange. The plaster above the sub-structure showed at least 4 re-plastering layers reaching to a total of 2cm height. After cleaning and finding their survived edges, their photos taken.

Locus L.5220 is dropped due to recovery of the hearth’s surfaces L.5225 and L.5227. The new locus for this area is L.5226. Unfortunately, the possible living surface associated with this hearth could not be detected, even though the surface should be at this level. Thus, I call this new locus as possible surface level associated with the use of the hearth. Soil of this locus is buff color, soft and clayey. However, dense ash mixture that was built up during the use of the hearth, especially in the W, E, and S of the hearth, makes the soil color more dark brown. This ash also indicative of possible surface related to hearth must be somewhere in this level of the L.5220. Perhaps, we are still digging accumulated debris with ash that might be right on top of the surface. If so, the surface might still be slightly below the 585.90 meter.

Tomorrow, I will close the trench for 3 days to supervise the other trenches on the site since the Bradley’s absence.