Today's goal was to finish WSAC, so that either Hasmik or Lilit could begin drawing the walls and floor tomorrow. In the morning, I had the crew of 6 (two borrowed from Ello) cleaning Locus 29, the paved floor, after removing most of the stones of Locus 30, the jumble. I decided to do this, even though some of them appear to be in straight lines, because we needed to finish, get down to the floor, and most of them were clearly resting on stones of the floor. I did however leave one that is partially connected to the SW baulk. After cleaning this area, it became clear that another linear feature, similar to Feature 26, continues along the SE wall in the room, in front of where the doorway should have been, suggesting that it was a blocked doorway in some earlier phase, or it is more of a niche from the WSAD side. I didn't call it a new feature today as we had already removed most of the soil from inside during the excavation of Locus 28 above the floor.
After cleaning the floor, we also discovered Feature 31, a circular depression in one of the stones of the floor, at the edge of FEature 26. This depression, which looks carved into the rock, contained no artifacts, only soil, and no soil sample was taken. It is possible it was caused from natural erosion, since the rock is very porous, but it is too circular and placed so near the wall and Feature 26 that that seems unlikely. It is roughly 32 cm deep, and could be a posthole or doorpost, although it is very close to the wall (45 cm). However it does seem to be in front of where the door would have been.
I also had the guys take down some more of the strip of mottled clay between Locus 29 and the NW baulk. I stopped them where the clay got very hardpacked, with splotches of orange and a lot of fractured charcoal. I then took photographs of the cleaned room with the exposed floor, both paved and unpaved, and FEature 31 (thanks to Ello, since I forgot my camera).
After lunch, I created a .5 by 2 meter probe running along the NW baulk to find bedrock. This did not take long, and the lens of the floor is now clearly visible in the NW baulk. The bedrock in this probe, after passing through a very thin lens of whitish clay, likely the floor prep, is a very gritty, sandy, orange brown matrix, that is sterile. The probe also revealed a lot of deteriorating, crumbly scoria-type rocks, also likely the bedrock.
I also had the guys working in WSAD in the afternoon, so that we can hopefully finish up in there tomorrow. I had them finish taking down Locus 32 along the SE baulk, to try and find the extent of the floor. We came down on a hardpacked, very mottled and confusing matrix, running from the eastern corner, outside of Feature 16, to about where the second (or earlier) paved stone begins. This mottled matrix, which also has charcoal, abuts the confusing array of stones in the center of the trench, and consists of a range of orange, brown, and yellow silty clay. It also runs into the area to the N of Feature 16 where reddish baked clay is leaching into the operation, perhaps from the walls where there is still some coating the lower course of stones. We will have to wait until tomorrow to clean this area completely, but it is likely that there is not that much else to do in WSAD.
I also had them finish taking down Locus 31, the matrix in the doorway that is on top of and to the NW of Feature 27, the oddly shaped basin. This matrix, at the level of the basin, is producing a lot of big, huge chunks of charcoal, and it is still unclear what it is doing there. The three stones that are still in the doorway continue to appear to be resting on the brown clay of the cultural level, and don't seem related to Feature 27. Tomorrow we will continue to clean this area, sweep the operation, and do another probe to find bedrock.