Today also marked an abbreviated field day, as our driver Aharon had a midday emergency to attend. We worked until noon. Weather was quite cool and shady, with significant wind in our Nigavan/Nigasar survey area.
We walked a single, rather long transect, from our survey area midline/drainage to a new drainage identified amid the lava flow that extends from Aragats southeast, under Aparan. On the northern portion of the transect, north of Nigaberd 4 and 5, we recorded scattered burials and then began to outline architecture associated with NIgaberd 5 as we ascended the western portion of that site.
Once we reached a specific southern point along the transect, the corridor-like architecture of Nigaberd gave way to a very wide, walled expanse that we soon identified as an additional fortress, the citadel of which was located to spaces above, atop a 2,000 m peak.
This fortress was labeled Nigaberd 6 and its architecture was preliminarily traced, including several long corridors on the eastern edge of my transect. Below and south of this fortress, we scoured an extensive cowpath for materials, finding only obsidian (including a sickle blade). We then recorded rather open territory and ethnographic/modern field walls before arriving at the new southern transect/drainage boundary.
Tomorrow, we hope to work an entire day of transects and cover a significant portion of our southwestern survey area. It will be interesting to see if architectural elements decrease or increase in frequency as we move further west.