First day working at Aparani Berd. After making a basic reconnaissance of the site yesterday we elected to place operation 2 on the low lying south terrace. We opted to place a 3x4m trench on the western edge where what appears to be a terrace wall runs largely north-south.
We excavated locus 1 without major interruption. The area is largely free of large boulders which may say something about the openness of the area. Material densities in locus 1 were relatively high, which is not surprising given the natural erosion of materials down from the citadel above.
By midday, we encountered a soil change with the brown silty wash of locus 1 yielding in the south and northwest portions of the trench to a packed yellowish brown clay (locus 2). In the northeast quadrant, a darker oval of brown silty soil suggested a pit or other feature (designated locus 3) dug into the clay of locus 2.
On our next day in the field, we will commence by taking down locus 3 to understand if it is a pit.