Search
Log In
Code
AFG.08.21
Season
2008
Narrative

A rather uneventful, but roducive day at Aragatsiberd: we finished our AB2 locus 9 excavations, continued to descend in the locus 13 pit, and to pull rocks and level the excavations in AB3.In AB2 we arrived at bedrock throughout the raised platform area. Several large cobbles and small boulders were encountered at the base of excavation (mostly on the western side of the locus), but they do not appear to align into any achitectural feature. Were we to remove the curious 1-2 course line of stones which frames the eastern side of locus 9, extending northwest from the locus 4 wall, the "platform" may actually turn out to be a slightly higher portion of the flattened bedrock floor. A small depression at the central northern edge of the platform appears to be partially associated with some more (white) cobbles at the base of our locus 11 excavations, near trench center.In the (AB2) locus 12/13 pit we continued to recover moderate amounts of small ceramics and bone, both through troweling and through the screen. Two "jar stoppers" were also recovered today. By 4PM, however, we had reached the bedrock base of the pit, approximately 1.5m from the upper lip. One fragment of large EB pottery was also found standing on the pit floor and leaning against the pit wall. More charcoal was found near the floor and was subsdequently sampled. Tomorrow we will finish the excavations and take our final soil and C14 samples.in AB3 we continued to clean, draw, photo, and pull wall fall stones all day, in the locus 2 clayey silt. The wall fall is most promiment in trench north near both likely walls, and in trench east, east of the "stone basin." As we removed wall fall it became cleat that the more southerly wall does not continued lower in the trench--we pedestalled it and have proceded to clear stones in a northeasterly direction toward the other wall, the one visible on the surface. Once the stone-clearing is completed we'll assign loci numbers to these walls. The trench east wall fall appears to leave the "stone basin" as the only potentially in situ rock in that entire area of the trench. Once the clearing is complete there we will proceed another 10cm lower across the entire trench.We also accomplished some distance photography of the hill today, all from the northern side, between Aragatsiberd and Sipan. Tomorrow we hope to resume mapping the site with the help of Adam and Ruben.