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Code
LK11.09
Season
2011
Narrative

After a night of heavy rains, it was not possible to screen locus 32 in WSN. Aside from a bit of troweling and rock cleaning in WSN.32, most of our energies were focused in WSI2, where we finished excavating locus 20, removing yet more slabs of the ceramic platter. We continued to trowel back clay mass in front of the "box", and eventually disassembled the feature itself. Soil samples taken from inside the box, including what appeared to be an ashy and clay matrix. In dismantling the feature and exposing the interior faces of the two stone uprights, it became evident that the latter were extensively burnt--the stones were blackened in their lower halves as though with soot (photos taken). The level of the ashy fill corresponded with the level the burning on the stone slabs. Toward the bottom of WSI2.20 we encountered yet a few more pieces of the baked clay, one of them especially covered with soot. Upon completing the installation of locus 20, we turned our attention to digging the floor of the room, locus 22 (screened). Took 3 MB samples from the floor. Also removed the groundstone that was perched on its side, just beside the flat rectangular stone that I have been tentatively calling a grinding station. It's still not certain which of the roundish flat stones in this operation are column bases; the four possible candidates are not well aligned with one another. It's possible that there are only 2--will make a determination once I receive Lilit's final drawing and can examine the alignment with the column bases in the other half of WSI. In the process of excavating locus 22 we encountered what seem to be pits under the floor, apparent from the absence of the white/yellow/gray clay deposit that is otherwise widespread across the room. Will probe these possible pits once we finish excavating the floor across the rest of the trench (mostly the west corner remains to be excavated).