Today was spent cleaning the upslope portion of T27 (L54, L56-60), and trying to come to an understanding of the white, clay (or plaster) surface which has emerged in the south part of the trench, and meets the bedrock about two meters from the S baulk. This surface may represent a flooring in lieu of the bedrock, when the later was not level. In any case, after trying to chase the edges of this surface, while not going through it during the morning, we found that it seems to extend throughout the southern part of the trench. Perhaps we can return to this next week to bring this area down to bedrock once we have photographed it.
This afternoon we tried to clean the upslope part of T27, but the wind was so bad that this was impossible. We will clean and photo tomorrow morning when the wind won’t be so strong. Because of this we spent most of the afternoon excavating in L07, L09 and L10 with the hope of cleaning and exposing a face for the wall tumble that is pervasive throughout these loci. This has proven difficult, however, since very little architecture is emerging. Except for a line of large granite stones at the very eastern edge of L09 and L10, no other convincing architecture has been exposed. We’ll continue with this tomorrow, as we have basically finished in the upslope portion of the trench.
We found four interesting objects: a fragment of bronze (maybe a bronze token or button but too small to tell; Ar/Ge.T27.56.M.02); a small, light blue, paste bead (Ar/Ge.T27.56.CO.01); a retouched obsidian blade (Ar/Ge.T27.9.L.01) and a strange cylindrical object about 6 cm long, and 2 cm wide, which a raised spiral around its outside. Not sure what this is (maybe a fossil) but Ruben will take it to the Institute on Friday to see.