Sluggish workers today with heat, paychecks and general lethargy from a full season, but we still accomplished a fair amount. Started in the morning with excavating Locus 19, the remaining cultural fill in the main area of the operation between the linear stone feature and the bottom of Locus 14, from the NE baulk to the ramp (roughly 5 m by .8 wide). I wanted to expose the linear feature (10) to see how it articulated with the floor, and came up confused as the stones are clearly sitting on a darkish soil (likely the result of erosion and leaking moisture, seen in the rest of the trench as the darker soil) but about 20 cm above the paved floor already exposed. We came down on several stones near and going under the ramp, which Lori suggested might become a pathway to the potential opening in the NW wall, but it means that the linear feature might be associated with a later occupation. While shoveling Gagik came down on a large ceramic platter with a thick, upturned edge that broke into a few fragments, two of which we took and one which we left in situ; however the platter is BETWEEN the stones of the floor and the rock of Feature 10...part of the fill? Indicative of cooking area/feature? The soil underneath the stones of Feature 10 also has some orange clays and charcoal/ash areas. We spent most of the day cleaning up this locus, troweling and finding either more stones of a paved floor or empty spaces with grayish and orangish clays, but tomorrow we need to focus on cleaning this area to the floor. We also took out two stones from the ramp which were sitting on soil, which was about 10 cm above more paved floor. I also had Gagik clean around the jumble of rocks in the southern corner, many of which are near the floor but sitting on soil...just a collapse? Lori came over after lunch and we tossed around the idea of focusing on the exposed floor area and the eastern corner with the days left, and if there is more time tackling the western area and the jumble of stones, which she thinks needs to be taken out because it looks like fall. There are three large stones however that look too intentionally positioned (even though they aren't on the floor, as far as I can tell now).
In the afternoon I had the guys push back the NE edge of WSAC2 in order for Lilit to draw and connect the paved floors from WSAC and WSAC2, which involved about .5 m and opening locus 34 in WSAC2 for any miscellaneous material that had not been picked up yet.
I opened WSAC3 Locus 20 under Locus 7 along the SW wall, in order to expose more of the rock jumble, but we didn't start excavating it yet. Instead I had the guys cleaning and sweeping the floor so that I could see where we needed to work in the next day or so to expose the floor and as much of the paved stones, and Feature 21 which I've designated as the stone feature abutting the floor in the eastern corner and consisting of a large flat stone with smaller stones all around it. While troweling in this area I found a small bronze loop/ring!