.bk J02
.fl O721ap.j
.fd daily journal
.rd O720
.ri aP
.ed O721
.ei aP

-sg today we spent all the first part of the morning before faidòs cleaning the big open area (k2, k12, k3, k13, k4, k14, k5, k15) to take a general picture of the squares. The aim is to give an idea about which should be the area during the mittanic period when, presumably, it should exist an horizontal plan with collapsed stones and pebbles all at the same level. We asked MKB to look the pottery in order to understand the period and also the last q-lots analyzed (q186, f65; q188, f65; q85, f32; q90, f32) confirms that the sherds belongs to phase 6 ( last occupation of the tell) as already suggested by the analysis of the following q-lots: q29, f12; q28, f10; q30, f15; q35, f15; q47, f22; q50, f22; q31 f16; q34, f16). In the meantime we are going on removing the dirt from the big German trench with the machine of Sabbah. During the afternoon eight pickmen worked to remove part of the big German trench. They started with the southern part of the western side (k4 and k5) and collapsed the soil into the trench without collecting pottery or objects. This will be done by the workmen that remove the dirt from the bottom. During the afternoon Minna and I were on the field. We wanted to draw the eastern section of k93 but collapsing stones made too much dust. So we decided to dot all the stones of the "apron" or wall in k2 and k12 to plot them.

-sy we removed the marker m3790, m3647, m3726, m3569, m3578, m3583, m3587, m3588, m3586.

-eq the "elevator" starts to work at 5.45. Today it works fine but before the faidòs we had to remove all the machinery in order to take the picture. Also the machine of Sabbah works very well.

k 2
dy since Minna and I were busy cleaning stones, vVE and jE came to draw the eastern section of k2. In this square, cleaning the bottom of the trench, we reached a very reddish layer (f74, q203). The material seems to be the same packing which characterized also the palace area with white organic inclusions which at a first sight seemed to be plaster and which have the same consistency of calcite. We scraped the surface and stopped with excavations. So we decided to start to remove the baulk with two teams of workmen. The eastern bulk is f78 but we made different q-lots for the northern part (f78, q210) and the southern part (f78, q211).

k 5
dy during the afternoon we started to remove the western part of the big German trench in k4 and k5. The feature is f79. We didn't collect pottery but the workmen just collapsed the wall in the trench.

k 14
dy after cleaning the surface for the picture we took away the pebbles and stones of small-medium size and we went going with a new feature (f76, q14). The consistency of the soil of this feature is quite the same of the feature above ( f15) but since there are no more stones we decided to change the feature. 

k 15
dy we started removing the north section (f71, q101). To avoid waste of time we decided to draw the southern section of k14 and so the workmen could go down with excavations and cleaning. mH draw the small eastern section and after it has been removed (f75, q205). Then the workmen went down in all the square reaching the same level of the other squares (f65, q207).

k 83
dy we went down in all the square (f62, q202) but we stopped since it was difficult excavating between the eroded stones which now occupy all the surface of the square.

k 84
dy we started to remove the northern baulk (f77, q209) removing also the northern part of the square which is cut from east to west by the german trench which runs from east to west.

k 100
dy we are going on removing the material from the bottom  of the trench and cleaning the last four steps ( f1, q204; f1, q206).