.bk J02
.fl P827mH.j
.fd daily journal
.rd P827
.ri mH
.ed P827
.ri mH

-wk We obtain new workmen today. These were Shallal (pick), Sipan (showel), Aldar (showel), and Omo (showel), whom I placed in k15, and Jihad (pick), Ramadan (showel), Juwan (showel), and Azdisher (showel), whom I placed in k24.

-sf I came back to the field after having been sick and missing from the field for two whole working days.

-dy We opened k24 today south of k23 in order to continue with making the steps for the stepped section west of k101, k14, and k15. We continued removing the north baulk of k15 in order to bring in parallel with the north baulk of k5. The removal of the east baulk of k5 was finished today and thus I assigned that workteam to start working on the ledges in k5.

k 101
dy We started by excavating in the southwest corner of the locus in f244 (q616). After we had removed that feature, the whole unit was rather uniform. The material (f239) was rather brown with pieces of broken red bricks that were mostly concentrated in the northwest corner of the unit. We removed that with q-lot q626. 

.ed P828
.ei mH

k 101
dy The surface of the unit slopes to the south/southwest. Thus we took the top elevation of f239 q626 from four locations. The north-most elevation is m3953 +12-169 = 88.15, moving south the next elevations are m3953 +4-169 = 88.07, m3953 +5-169 = 88.08, and the southern-most elevation is m3953 +10-175. At the end of the day we took two elevation measurements. The northern-most was m3953 +7-173 = 88.06 and the southern-most was m3953 +3-173 = 88.02. At the end of the day f239 still remained in most of the locus, but following the northern along the oval wall (f128) there was a gray layer we labeled f248. This equals f247 in k103. At the end of the day we decided to combine k101 and k103 as k104 starting tomorrow.

k 103
dy We started by removing what we thought were the remains of f240 (q617). Underneath the removed area, however, we found more of similar brown soil with an ash lense roughly in the middle of the locus. Since the spoil color, texture, and composition did not differ from that of f240, we considered this to be part of the same feature. We relayed the approximate center of the ash lense (r747), gave feature numbers to the two rodent holes in this unit (f250 and f251) and relayed them (r745 and r746, respectively) and continued the excavation (f240 q624). Underneath we discovered another brown layer (f246), and following the the northern edge of the locus, a gray layer (f247), which seemed to go under f246. This equals f248 in k101. At the end of the day we decided to combine k101 and k103 as k104 starting tomorrow.

k 15
dy We continued removing the northern baulk (f233). With the help of Shallal the work was progressing faster, although it was still rather slow. This was due to the hardness of the deposit, which was the by now very familiar cement-like deposit. Four q-lots were excavated here today (q614, q623, q627, and q632).

k 5
dy We finished removing the remainder of the east baulk (f220 q612). Since the plan in k4 and k5 was to go as deep as the apron (f131) steps take us, it was no longer possible to leave the whole of k5 onto the 90 m elevation. We need to excavate this locus so that it will eventually contain the 86 m ledge, slope between the 86 m and 88 m ledge, the 88 m legde, the slope between 88 m and 90 m, and the 90 m ledge. The 90 m ledge will be located along the southern edge of the locus. I measure 2 meters in from the northern edge of the ledge-to-be and instructed the men to dig within this 2 m stretch. We could not excavated all the way to the northern edge of the locus today, since the northern face still needs to be drawn. We continued with the feature we finished with a while back and excavated three q-lots (q619, q622, and q628). These were all located to the east of the elevator, which occupies roughly the center of the locus.

k 23
dy Approximately 1 m west and 1 m north of r744 we had an extremely hard surface (f242), which differed from the rest of the excavation area by being very homogenous in nature and lacking pebbles and pottery sherds clearly visible the in the rest of unit (f241). These are shown in v106. Ahmed Muhammed, who returned to the locus after having helped with the geophysical survey, suggested that these were the remains of bricks. He also saw two courses of bricks on the western wall of the excavated area. I could see what he suggested were lines marking the possible upper and lower faces of bricks, but I am still not convinced that we indeed had bricks. If we did, they were very ephemeral. I decided to remove f242 (q618). After only a couple of centimeters, the layer dissappeared and the whole excavation area was now f241, which we then excavated further (q621). Under f241 we located another hard surface with plenty of pottery sherds and pebbles. We labeled this f249.

k 24
dy We continued with the top soil feature (f243) and excavated one q-lot (q615). We found one metal item (i14), possibly a coin, from this q-lot.