6/16/2006Today marked the start of a new season at Tsaghkahovit. The first few hours of the morning were spent selecting and organizing the workers and laying out the new large trench, which encompassed rooms I, G, and H. The total area is 23 x 23 m, but in actuality I am dividing this space into three operations, named WSI, WSG, and WSH. These are sized 23 x 13m, 10 x 10m, and 13 x 10m, respectively. For the most part, the visible architecture defines the boundaries of each operation, but there are cases where slivers of neighboring rooms are included in the trench of a neighboring room. This was necessary because the walls are not entirely at right angles to one another, so it was impossible to create rectilinear trenches that also conformed to the architecture. The main objective today was to remove turf along the lines of the operations so that we could remove the string. After defining the edges I began to remove the rest of the turf in WSH, where I have decided to start excavations. I have some concern that the trench is laid out precisely in the path of the cattle. The workers told me they will notify the shepherd. The day was ended with locus 1 open in all three operations.