Today I began my morning by wrapping things up with locus 55, the baby burial in T38. I excavated the tomb until it was sterile and uncovered a few looming baby hand and foot bones in the process. While there was no bronze to be found (sigh), this burial was incredibly interesting in terms of our understanding of Bronze Age mortuary practices. It is rare to find the remains of such a young individual -- let alone in such a cute (impressive) architectural construction. I am curious why this baby was situated outside the complex -- and if this has any meaning, and also more generally why we have such little data on KA mortuary practices with young individuals. I wrapped up pre-lunch time by taking some final metrics and elevations in the unit. It is truly sad to say goodbye to the trench where it all began. As they say, you never forget your first.
Slightly down slope things continued and ended in operation T40. After nearly 2 meters of digging, we accepted the fate that the only anomalies in this area were geological and not archaeological. Bedrock is nowhere to be found. In other words, the trench was rich "for science" but not much else... Tomorrow operation T41 will commence.