Search
Log In
Code
LK15.04
Season
2015
Narrative

We arrived at work today to find extensive vandalism across operation 1. As many as 15 or more stones from within the operation were cast into the interior of the trench, including what seemed to be in situ wall stones. Some of the tossed stones were quite large, suggesting that this was not the work of small children, but purposeful damage to the site. The perpetrators are of course unknown. It's hard to imagine that the disgruntled elderly shepherd who scolded us the day before for allowing stones to fall down into the gorge would have been responsible. Clearly our presence at the site is known, though, and some in the community are not particularly pleased about it. After cleaning the mess inside the operation, we proceeded with the work. In the northern segment of the operation I created locus 7, more of the dark black wash level found elsewhere across the trench. 2 stone small finds in this locus. I also decided to expand the operation to the south by 2 meters. The topsoil of this extension was locus 8. First, the trench was getting too crowded with 5 workers and 2 supervisors. Second, I wanted to try and identify the southern wall of the presumed room we are excavating. I next opened locus 9 to capture the most rocky area of the extension, adjacent to the original operation. Locus 9 is 3 x 1 meters, for now (it may expand to the south). In the course of the work today, it began to appear that we have phases in the operation. An earlier phases is associated with the low wall (one course?) that is semi-circular, and build against the presumed eastern wall. The emerging floor at the bottom of locus 6 appears to be associated with this construction. Then, there is the upper wall, whose corner in the northeast justified the opening of the operation in this location in the first place. The question is, what floor is associated with this upper wall? The only possible trace is a few flat stones in the northeast corner, that may be part of a flagstone, but it's odd that there was no clay surface associated with this wall. We tried to trace a segment of this flat stone surface elsewhere, above the lower wall in the middle of the east side, but the stones there are not quite as flat. In short, while in some areas there seems to be a space between the lower "arcing" wall and the upper "room" wall, suggesting an interval of time, elsewhere the two walls are almost immediately on top of one another.