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Code
SB17.29
Season
2017
Narrative

Today we walked transects moving from the western slope of the Dzoraglugh fortress, north of the village, east. This was primarily in an attempt to locate a known Bronze Age cemetery that was partially excavated in the 70s by Areshian. Transect 41 ran west from the drainage west of the fortress and north of the modern cemetery. A short transect only to the next drainage, there were no sites, or surface collections. Transect 42 also ran west starting further south in the same area until we came to a small forest at the base of a steep mountain and extending over a drainage. On this transect I picked up a piece of obsidian and a sherd in a steep drainage along the transect and I walked out of transect and up to some terraces on a hill towards the end where I picked up another scatter of a few flakes. Transect 43 extended back east, further south along the forest where we stopped and back towards the drainage where we began. Most of this transect was fields and drainages and abandoned Soviet Kolkhoz buildings. After this transect we did ground truthing of the cemetery north of Dzoraglugh village. I put in two points. One was on the east side of the drainage just at the base of the Dzoraglugh fortress hill. This was a more modern portion of the cemetery with many dated interments ranging from the 1960s-present. The second point was on the west side of the drainage and was a much older, Medieval portion of the cemetery with some crosses carved into stones, but mostly just long slabs of stones with some smaller stones made to stand at one end. Transect 44 started on this western side of the drainage below the fortress. In fact, my transect began on what appeared to be a room-block eroding into the drainage. It is likely that the Isolated architecture point that Chris recorded here (with many medieval looking sherds collected) may be on part of the Bronze Age cemetery. The transect ended at the forest at another drainage. Again, most of this transect was fields and Kolkhozes. The final transect of the day was 45 and stretched from just below the forest west until it ended at fields. It skirted the slope of a hill but consisted mostly of munched up fields and drainages. At the very end of the day we ground truthed a 19th century church in the village of Dzoraglugh. Tomorrow our transects will likely continue in a different part of the over all survey area.