Today was somewhat slow as we spent a lot of the morning cleaning and leveling Locus 22 in WSAC for photographs. The final surface, after troweling and cleaning some of the rockpile in the southern area of the operation, is a mottled brown with splotches of orange and bits of charcoal, as well as small rocks and pebbles throughout. We stopped at a level that abuts the bottom of the stones of the bottom course of the NE wall as well as the stones of Feature 26, and slopes slightly to the south and west. The dust was bad in the afternoon, but I took photographs of the surface after lunch because the shadows had all moved out. I declared this new surface WSAC.28, and will probably start taking it down near Feature 26 to see if I'm right about being at a floor. It is still unclear in the baulk. The area of rockfall in the southern corner is more confusing now, since we have already removed a lot and more keep appearing- its possible it is from some other feature in the room.
Feature 26 in WSAC appears now, having been cleaned, very similar to the stone feature 16 in WSAD- both consist of smaller stones than those used in the walls of the room, which are laid flat on what might be floors, and both contain stones in the interior. Also, neither has produced that much in the way of ceramic or faunal material. It is interesting, and confusing, however, that they are 35-40 cm apart in elevation. Either we have come across a later secondary floor surface in WSAD that is imitating earlier features, or the floors were perhaps at different heights. It remains to remove more of WSAD to see if indeed we are on a floor.
In the doorway area I just troweled a little and took elevations for the bottom of WSAC/WSAD.25, the brown clay matrix between the stones of the SE wall in WSAC and the three large stones in the middle of the doorway which may or may not be an earlier wall construction. This pocket of soil, without any rocks, turned into a light brown/yellowish silty but hardpacked clay surface, with the tops of several rocks showing, mostly the porous black scoria-type. Adam came to the site today and he and Lori discussed further the possibility of extending this SW 'doorface' half a meter or a meter back to try and find the doorface and to explore the extent of the lower linear feature.
In WSAD I had the guys remove another 1 by 3 m section of Locus 21, extending to the SW from the section of this locus already excavated. The matrix does not seem to have changed, and is mottled with pebbles and rocks strewn throughout, as well as charcoal. I took another sample today for analysis that was recovered west of Feature 16. This excavation revealed three large stones near the SE baulk which are likely rockfall. It also, interesting, revealed more of the baked clay coating on some of the stones on the NW wall, near the northern corner, as well as stones further west that appear to go beneath the locus, indicating that we might still be above a floor. I also declared Locus 26 as the remaining dark soil, still loamy and not that clay-y, in the southern corner of the operation, although the guys didn't begin removing it yet. Gagik, Sevag and Ardzrun stayed after today to break the two large boulders in the western area of the operation, which are sitting on the mottled brown matrix.