Last day in the field, spent cleaning for final photos and accomplishing as much with the floor as possible. In the morning, I had five workers troweling the paved floor (16) and sweeping the clay floor (22) so that by lunch, we could take photos while Lilit was not drawing. This took most of the first half of the day, because of the mud and general mess of the floor from the rain. Took photos around 1.
In the afternoon with the time we had left I opened locus 30 as the matrix under 22 in order to expose what is beneath the hardpacked clays and silty areas of the clay floor, as well as to try and expose more around the feature with the in situ mortar (WSAC3.21.L.01). Because of the time we only managed an area extending from the NE baulk about 1 meter to the SW.
These clays are frustrating in that in some areas about 5 cm down we hit bedrock, in the form of the fracturable scoria-type rock, and in others clay that continues down, with lots of charcoal. In particular, an area along the NE baulk about 1 m from the SE edge of the operation I took down roughly 15 cm, so that I could see the very thin blackish lens of the floor, but the clay just kept going, whereas twenty cm away closer to the floor, there is bedrock. It suggests that the bedrock surface is irregular and the clayish-sub floor was used to fill the irregularities. There was also an area that Ardzrun was troweling, embedded in this clay locus were several sherds of a red, first-mill. looking vessel, which I measured and took a quick photo of- are the clays a later addition and the sherds were on an earlier floor? Did something in the northern quadrant of the room which is still unexcavated spill down, covering the clay floor? We didn't get to the more southwestern area of this locus, where it is very black, and very clay-y, and might suggest some sort of very large pit right at the edge of the paved floor whose edges I couldn't discern. Is this some sort of working area? Is it related to the linear stone feature?
All in all a great, great season at the site, with great workers!