RB and I started day at Gegharot with a particular in terest in the state of T2. Ian has done a very nice job working with some really complex stratigraphy. Here is my current theory as to what is going on (see draeing in notebook). We seem agreed that the rectangular corner that we have in the upper part of the trench is Early Bronze--the obsidian point and overwhelmingly EBA ceramics seem to clearly indicate this. From Jane's excavations, it seems clear that the curvilinear wall in the center of the trench is an LBE construction dug into the EBA levels. Behind it, is bedrock and EBA materials--including 2 nice large EBA vessels. In front of it, from the infamous locus 23, we have LBA. This scenario gets more complicated in the extensions. First, in T2c, there is no evidence of the curving LBA wall. It just seems to stop. Furthermore, in the western half of the trench, at a substantially elevated level is Bedrock which seems to have been durg out in the east. If we were to intrepret the curving LBA wall as a habitation wall, we would have a big block of bedrock in the middle of the room. In T2b, we have the additional problem of walls perpendicular to the curving wall. The easternmost, Jane excavated the face of in 2000. The westernmost is a very nicely faced corner--one face extends along the curvilinear wall while the other goes perpendicular to it. In this corner, just slightly below this wall, we found what we presently believe to be an EBA karas. Indeed, just below the wall that runs parallel to the curvilinear wall is a level of blackened earth and charcoal and then a thin level of small stones that perhaps are reminiscent of an EBA construction. It seems that what we have then might be an LBA room construction against the face of the Curvilinear wall and built directly on top of an EBA room. The problem then remains of the curvilinear wall. I think perhaps the best way to understand this may be that the curvilinear wall was built solely as a retaining wall again the bedrock to protect against erosion. Then the LBA rooms were built against this. Locus 23 then might be best understood as a midden where the trash was thrown outside of the walls.
After lunch RB and I headed to Tsakahovit where PA presented us with a silver medallion that seemed to have impressed on two sides iconography highly reminiscent of mitannian style decorations. It was found while Armine was cleaning the area between the late wall (stratum III) and the stone floor (stratum II). It would of course have been senstational if it survived comparative research but it unfortunately did not even survive cleaning. Once cleaned, it became more obvious that it was a coin from the Sasanian period of the 5-6th centuries AD. This does at least give us some sense of the intervening period between our two constructions, Strata II and III.
C3: continuing to define the pits in area D. In the pit against the Western balk, we found a number of small tuff stones that may have been shaped along with other largely LBA materials. I think that we are largely finished with this area except fo cleaning and completion of one pit. In area B, continuing where possible against the internal face (BE) we uncovered a floor of small pebbles that reaches underneath two large stones (that we must remove tomorrow) and a late wall built against the main wall. We also seem to have defined a perpendicular wall with masonry largely identical to that of the main wall. We re-covered the pebble floor to protect it and will reopen once we have removed the large stones. In area B, on the external face of the main wall, we seem to have reached the floor of the wall which seems to be built upon the second organic level that we first observed in A. It will be easier to understand the relative levels once we have good section drawings.