Daily Summary:
WT3: Took photos of Locus 9 and the in situ mortar that Ian uncovered on 7/6. Then proceeded down and simultaneously hit bedrock and encountered a strange crevice against the natural rock. A strong outflow of cold air from the crevice was immediately perceptible. This suggest perhaps a sizable subterranean opening, but as we opened the crevice a bit (now blocked by very large rocks, I began to be increrasingly certain that whatever opening there is is best explained as a natural, not cultural, phenomenon. We will continue to work on opening the area, but I don't think it worth too much effort. Once this feature has been explored, we must either expand or move our WT operation.
NT1: Continuing in A and B and we are now encountering burned beams in both. In A, we dig a small window and came upon a slightly packed clay layer differentiable from the ashy fill only in texture, not color. It is a surface of some kind but whether it is the flor or not remains uncertain. In B, we came upon a hearth-like feature built agains the wall in the SW corner of the trench. A burned beam rests on top of the feature and seems to also lie along its edge (feature recorded as Locus B15). A second beam was found to the NW. Presevation was excellent and we were able to remove two very nice pieces intact for Dendrochronological analysis (Locus 12). Perhaps the most interesting find of the day was a large (0.6m) tall stone (basalt) phallus. It was found in the SE corner of Area A as we were clearing stones near the balk. It was found lying on one side so seems to have been disturbed by the collapse. It is unclear as yet if it was resting on a floor. Overall, material densities are quite high and initial inspection o fhte ceramics suggest a highly homogenous LBA assemblage.
C3: Continuing in both A and C. By the end of the day, the rock layer in Area A was almost completely cleared exposing an ashy layer throughout. The wall in the west balk is continuing down. In Area C, we have exposed the stone floor and located what seems to be the internal face of the fortification wall in the NE corner. We will trim the E balk back to try to pick up the rest of this architecture. Material densities here continue to be high.
C5: Removing parts of the carpet of stones encountered just below the topsoil in order to define architecture and open areas for excavation. We have defined three loci (2, 3, and 4) based on two possible walls that run perpendicular roughly N-S and E-W.