Maureen and Levon worked at Kurgan 2 with me again today. Uncovering both chambers, things seemed to be relatively dry, despite the rain over the weekend. Our goals for today were to finish exposing the bones in the western chamber and make as much progress as possible in exposing the situation in the central chamber. We were not able to finish exposing the situation in the western chamber, as more bones were uncovered.
The animal spine in Locus 102 (central chamber) is headless, but the atlas and axis are present. In Locus 104, we found a very large faience bead (Ar/Ge.K2.104.P.01), at a depth of 2210.423 masl, between Locus 27 and Locus 107. We also uncovered another dagger
(Ar/.Ge.K2.104.M2), running beneath the second skeleton. Ruben thinks it might be Late Bronze. In Locus 102, in the central chamber, besides the large mammal vertebrae and ribs, there is now a sheep/goat tibia and astragalus, and the mandible of a small carnivore.
In the W chamber, we found another small piece of charcoal (Ar/Ge.K2.103.C14.02), just east of the bones in the western half of the chamber, at a depth of 2210.993 masl. We exposed more vertebrae along the southern wall of the chamber and a sheep/goat hindlimb (distal femur, patella, and proximal tibia). It appears now that the legs uncovered in 2013 and designated as Locus 32 are also sheep/goat. We also uncovered another sheep/goat skull in the NW corner of the western chamber, oriented more or less the same as the first, and also crushed. It seems likely that the vertebrae uncovered at the end of 2013 may have belonged to that individual. We had to expand the sides of the chamber in that corner in order to expose the skull. The walls of the pit seem to have been cut very far under the top diameter. The mostly articulated individual in the southwest corner has an unfused ulna and 1st phalanx, and a fusing proximal femur. In between the two skulls, we have exposed a metapodial, some carpals, and phalanges.