Almost didn’t go out to the site today because it rained all night and into the morning- however, in the end we decided (in large part because we wanted to begin lifting the ceramics from T27) to give it a try. The weather cooperated and barely drizzled on us at all. Dima and Adam were on hand to aid in the removal of the ceramics. Using the drawing I made yesterday and the loci labeled on it, we began by removing the intact (or largely intact vessels) and then began removing the more fragmented ones. In all, it went off without much of a hitch, and so far we have labeled up to 41 ceramics (though we left a few of the larger, fragmented storage jars in situ for removal tomorrow). We kept the soil in the ceramics that were fill with soil for flotation (and set these aside for Roman once we got back to the house), and took a number of large soil samples from the larger, but more fragmented vessels. Some of the vessels had smaller ceramics inside them (especially L13), while others were mixed in situ (particularly L24, L25 and L45) were mixed together in situ, and also partially in the baulk, so not all of the pieces may have been removed.
In addition to the removal of the ceramics, we recovered a carnellian bead (Ar/Ge.T27.05.L.03) in addition to a ceramic jar stopper, and a series of stone tools/mortars.