.bk J03 .fl Q909jW.j .fd Daily journal for Q909 .fn -sg .ei jW .ed Q909 .rd Q909 .ri jW -wk All assigned workmen reported, after a two-day break occasioned by the extraordinary workload the week before to prepare for the visit of the Minister of Culture and the Governor of Hassake. All workmen were assigned to the eastern half of the unit in accordance with the strategy reported under that section. Workman Lazgien was ill and was excused by jW for the day during the temporary absence of fAB from the field. Removal workman Imad was inattentive and allowed his wheelbarrow to fall a distance of 1 meter into a square, slightly injuring a shovelman, Lazgien (the excusal for illness and the accident were unrelated). -sf All staff but jW will spend the last week in the field. Each first-year archaeologist will supervise their own crew of six, and will work under the direction of rE. They will be responsible for all journal entries. The local assistants will be responsible for writing most log entries under the direction of the archaeologists. jW planned to divide the mornings between supervising in the field and at home reviewing the status of the documentation, but the pace of work will require his presence in the field for most of the week to continuously redistribute the workforce to the loci requiring the most effort. -sy bWP installed a number of new control points along the north and south baulk lines to be used for relays. These will replace the corner markers that were removed when the N-S baulks were excavated last week. -sg gB, mKB and fAB met with the unit staff in the field on Q908 to develop an appropriate strategy to meet the goals of the season during this, the last week of scheduled excavations. In the western half (previously supervised by vVE), except for finishing a small remaining portion of a N-S bulk removal and documentation such as drawing and relaying the stones that were hidden in the baulks, the work is complete. Therefore, the entire team will work in the eastern half. First, because J1 has a staggering workload, we will assume control of the northeastern line of two half squares above the wall top. Locus k109 will be extended eastward to subsume this part. Because a high baulk forms the eastern edge, we will maintain a 50cm baulk to the east for safety and to facilitate drawing the section from the J3 side. -sg We need to remove several floating stones sitting on high pedistals, then excavate to the level of k108, immediately to the east. The second goal in k108, k22 and k23 is to follow the hard-packed surface of f123 and f31 north to its expected intersection with the packed mud surface of f152 and or the baqaya, f50 and f109. From the west section of k12, it appears as if f123 may be the glacis in the middle Mittani Phase when the wall was covered, but had "memory stones" placed atop its cover of soil along the line of the wall as it existed in earlier phases. The third and most important goal is to expose the south face of monumental wall, f11, to a depth of about one meter to link the earlier excavations in J2 to the east and J1 to the west. Finally we will remove the loose dirt piled against and atop loci k91, k92, k93, and k94. In the process we will even the cut of the south baulks and assure that each is excavated to the same depth. jW and gB later discussed the possiblity of opening a trench higher on the mound to see if it may originally all been covered in brick. gB pointed out that although it would be near the surface, it could not be seen from the observation post. Furthermore, it would be difficult to preserve over the long term - the brick exposed to the east in the German excavations of several years ago having already eroded away. jW noted that the packed mud glacis f152 may in fact be the detritus from bricks which eroded in antiquity. -sg Upon excavation this morning of a packed mud surface, f241, in the northeastern part of k109, gB suggested that we halt work there. He believed that it was the remains of the final glacis, probably built in Phase 7, and a continuation of the pottery layer seen in the north section of J1 above the wall. If we stop here, we will have examples of the glacis of Phase 1 in k101, k12, and k13; the glacis of Phase 6b in k108, k22, and k23; and the glacis of Phase 7 in k109. k 109 dy The locus was divided into two parts, north and south. In the north, we removed accumulation, f194. Under it we found a mud glacis, f241, which was a continuation of a similar coating to the east under the packed earth floor, f173. In the south we removed four large floating limestone blocks, f184, f178, f242, and f243. We removed accumulation f240, under which was a hard packed dirt floor surface, f247. Atop this floor and possibly associated with it was an arc of large stones spanning about sixty degrees. k 108 dy First, we removed a lightly packed floor surface, f173, originally discovered as a part of k22. Under this was a mud glacis, f241, which continued to the west into k109. This a natural accumulation, f119. We did not find evidence of accumulation f118, which was atop f119 further to the south. In the north east corner we found that f119 covered the mud glacis, f123 and f31, that we previously exposed to the south and east respectively.