The survey team spent today at Mirak Fortress, helping Salpi finish her excavations of Operation 02 and training on the GNSS, which we got working with a proper UTM 38N geoid last night.
At OP 02, we descended rapidly in the trench's eastern half, clearing and pulling floating stones and exposing the interior face of the wall that Salpi has been pursuing for a couple weeks now. We ended the day with a beautiful two-course cyclopean wall that extended W to E across the eastern two thirds of the trench. South of the wall, we encountered a similar clay/pebble matrix that was coming up on the northern side of the wall, where it appeared to have been applied between the cut bedrock of the hill and the wall stones. We chipped away at this dense matrix all day, attempting to delineate the outside wall face and its intersection with bedrock. An open question is whether the wall turns southward at its current western terminus, whether we have a corner there, etc. Tomorrow's descent will likely clarify that.
In the western portion of the trench, the situation is much less clear, as there are a number of floating boulders there, which likely compose a later (Iron Age wall line). Most of the diagnostic material associated with the lower wall interior appears to be affiliated with the Lchashen-Metsamor horizon. While several pieces from north of the wall look later in date.
I worked with all of the students to collect GNSS data for Salpi's trench corners and datums (OP01-03) and for the ground control points that Arsho painted around the site in week 1. We had general success in our data collection, other than the annoying auto-point collection that the device is set to perform at present. We are working with tech support guy "Bob" to fix that. The base station battery ran out as we were collecting the last two points, so we will retake those tomorrow. Karen, Chris, and Salpi all had success in taking points.