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Code
AG17.18
Season
2017
Narrative

Our work today consisted in most part of a long extensive transect walk north from the western portion of the Chknagh quadrant, through Horomi Paler, and east to the area above Pupuyi Pal. We identified a fortress among the rocky columnar andesite of Horomi Paler and then made several other surface collections and burial cluster IDs during our descent to Chknagh.

At Horomi Paler we ascended through the west central area of the columnar andesite outcrops among oak scrub an rose bush. There was little evidence of architecture until we had climbed up on top of the initial outcrop ("pal"). There, we came across several levels of extensively collapsed walls set between the different outcrops. Each, as we moved progressively from the southwest to the northeast, it became clear that these walls closed of the spaces of the fortress by sealing the areas between portions of bedrock. Some ran parallel to the slope and some perpendicular, along the contour. The fortress was not particularly large, nor was its spatial structure easily comprehensible from the ground. Drone imaging may be the best way to provide clarity on those. I don't imagine that this was an intensively occupied fortress, but something more like the three outpost forts above Gegharot in the Pambak.

Other finds of note today included several likely burials in the same Paler hill region, consisting of cobble piles arranged West to East, approximately 2m long each. They suggested modern burials.