August 7, 2000
We started digging in the lower mound. For today I am only digging the top-soil.We
started with 20cm.
Our arbitrary datum heigt is 50 meters. For the first time The workers could go only 10cm
so I told them 20 more.
After cleaning the dirt I will change the bags. There are no difference between the levels
but I want to keep them as seperate.
We found some bones and theyare so thin. And they are carved also or turtle bones. But I
have no idea about the bones. (L3000, kt#3002) ( After we show them to Chiara now we
are sure that they are turtle bones) They are at the NW quarter of the trench near to the
center.
We found a teeth at the S side of the trench also.
The top soil has a brown reddish color.It is loose and we found more bones of the
turtlebut I don't want to screen the top soil for the smaler bones. the location of the bones
are; 1.80 meters from the W baulk and 1.90 meters from the N baulk.
L3000 is a fill which is the top-soil. Coarse sand mixed withsilt, semi-loose, brown &
reddish with roots.
After cleaning the dirt I will change the locus number. But I think we are at the same
level, sme material. Bt because of the sun, it is really hard to identifycolor changes.
Tomarrow morning I will check the section again and i will be sure then.
After we dig we could not finish the whole trench and the NE side is still higher. We
couldn't level the trench very well also because the workers are so tired.
August 9,2000
We will set the tent firstand we will dig the highe part at the NE corner of the trench.
Then I will change the locus and continue digging. Probably I won't be here after
breakfast so I will try to go as fast as possible. I gave them a pottery bag (KT#3004)
(L3000)We are still digging in the plowed soil)
I closed L3000. About elevations: August 7th, the bottom elevation was 49.26 because
the trench wasn't leveled. Still that part is the lowest part but now it looks like it is a hole
in the ground so I m not considering that elevation anymore. Today the closing elevation
is49.27 at the corner (Bottom elevation)
We started excavating L3001 sub top-soil. We started from the W side of the trench. It is
also loose nd the workers are using shavels to dig. At the same time they are moving the
dirt from the west side. We found some bones that should belong to a big animal.
I don't think we can dig the NE quarter today because I have to leave soon.
We decided bot to go to Diyarbakir so I am back. We leveled the trench and I closed
L3001 because we are now on a more packed stuff. I want to remove it seperately. And
there are some pebbles at these level also. So this level is L3002. We started from the
SW corner. I cannot see easily because of the dirt now but there is some white material
under it. There are a lot of white chuncks in this layer. But Icut a section in the middle
and the white stuff doesn't form a line. I will level this layer and look for lines. Because
thet seems alittle reddish also. Dirty. We started digging the N side of the locus 3002. It is
the same with the South side. (white stuff) We are now leveling this part. We could not
find anything yet.
We decided to dig a probein the corner of the trenchwe will continiuethat until we
hitsomething. I decided to open that at teh NE corner of the trench. It willbe 1.5 meters
by1.5 meters and it will be a new locus (L3003) so I am waiting for the level now. After I
take elevations I will make the workers to dig that corner.
In the S side of the probe ther is a harder part that looks like mud brick and in the N side
it is more reddish with that white stuff. They cut the section after they clean it I will lokk
at there to see any lines. I don't think there is mud-brick there. I decided to go 20 cm
moreso if there is something I will see it in the section.
We couldn't see anything in the section. So we are continiuing in that probe. Also we are
not finding too many pot sherds. This trench has nothing yet.
August12,2000
We are still continiuing that probe. Still a very little amount of pottery there. I said them
25cm more but the soil is hard so they cannot do that much.
We decided to continiue tis as a sounding and I am moving to F1. After now we will have
only levels in this probe. And we will leave a worker there.
We found a lot of ash in this sounding and a lot of hard soil above these ash and bones. In
the soil above the ash tere weren't a lot of pottery or anything else that we started to think
that this was virgin soil.
Trench Summary
This trench is at the lower mound of Kenan Tepe. The purpose to open this trench was to
identify the earlier phases of the site. We started to remove top soil (L3000) and then we
changed the locus to L3001 because we decided that we went too deep as a same layer but
there was no change in the soil. Then we continiued digging and we started to find more
pebbles but there weren't enough sherds on the L3002. The soil was plowed so it was hard
to reach good contexts.So we decided to open a probe at the NE corner of the trench to
identify the depth of these contexts(L1003) and we dug it as a seperate locus at the first
days. But we couldn't find pottery in this probe except one or two pieces. Then, we
decided to concentrate on the other trenches at the area F because we were finding alot of
stuff there and there was nothing in the trench F3. So I moved to F1 and the probe
continiued as a sounding. We couldn't find almost anything in the first layer of the
sounding. But when we reached the end of the first layer we started to find some bones
and the next layer was a surface probably. Then we started to find a lot of bones and alot
of ash in this area in Layer 4 so we took 4 bags of soil sample then we understood that te
bones were belonging to a geer antler. After this layer we continiued to find a lot of bones
and more pottery than before. At the Layer 7th the ash was still continiuing. There might
be a large oven at that sounding.