.bk J03
.fl P824jW2.j
.fd daily journal P824 -wk,-sf,-sy,k104,k103,f50,f43
.fn corrections and additions made by jW on Q415
.ei jW
.ed P824
.rd P824
.ri jW

-wk Three picks and five in support reported for work.  At the direction of faB, Suliman Muhammad was added to the workforce.  Ibrahim ill and excused from work at 1130 by jW.

-sf Students Zuann and Ismail reported for work.  For most of the morning, gM worked in the house processing data.

-sy Under very difficult conditions including a steep sloping floor and undercut stones, the surveyor, bP, laid out a 2m by 2m square, k104, aligned with the excavation grid.  The S side touched E-W wall, f11; the E side touched the foundations of the apron, f10; and the W side touched the N-S line of stones that included f35 at the N end.  The south side of the square almost coincided with the N edge of the N baulk of k11, and was roughly centered on an E-W line.

k 104
dy The surveyor laid out and measured the locus, a 2m by 2m square in the far south edge of k12.  We began removing the bakhia terrace, f50, then a softer, brown fill underneath, f57.
I99 This locus is the second phase of the typological analysis column begun at the surface in k102, the north baulk of k12.  Excavation of the first phase was halted when we reached a layer of compacted local virgin soil, bakhia, f50, which formed the sloping surface of a terrace which led upward from the monumantal wall, f11, to the temple at the top of the mound.  We resumed digging the column into f50, which sealed well the layers below, after moving it southward along that surface to the face of the wall, and changing the dimensions from 1m by 4m to 2m by 2m.  This way we get both the information about changes in the ceramics over time and data about how the wall was built with one small trench cut into the terrace surface.

k 103
dy We continued to excavate the brown loess, f53, under the topsoil.  Then, after the baulks were trimmed, we noticed a subtle color and texture change had occurred that may have marked an earlier transition to the next layer, a series of laminations, f56.

f 50
dy Photographed, v17, under difficult conditions of sunlight and shadow, the terrace and its relationship with the temple monumental wall, f11, and the apron, f10.
H99 gB and jW discussed the relationship between the terrace, f50, which we hypothesize was built during the Early Dynastic IIIb period, and the monumental wall, f11.  Since the terrace and the wall appear to join at least 50cm under the extant wall top, jW believed that the top stones of the wall, which matched the apron, f10, represented a late (Mitanni) addition to an earlier EDIIIb phase of the wall.  gB, based on evidence from earlier excavations in unit B6, thought it more likely that the wall we see was the original one and that the terrace, f50, was covered with a surface of brick, which melted and washed away.  The top of the brick surface would have been at the same elevation as the wall top.  A flat surface running E-W that interrupts the N-S slope one meter N of the wall may be the foundation for one of several concentric rings of stone or bricks that highlighted the rise of the mound.

f 43
ns Compared elevations of this hard-surfaced ashy feature, which abuts the south side of wall, f11, to the elevation of a similar feature in J1.  The elevation of f43 is 8982, while the elevation of the J1 feature is 8971.  We conclude that the surfaces are part of a continuous deposit extending along the entire region south of the S face of the monumental wall f11.
H99 One possibility is that it represents the residue from the destruction of one of the earlier phases of the BA temple which washed down the mound, over the wall and was deposited.  We hypothsize that this surface was in place and visible when the monumental staircase and apron were built during the temple's Mitanni phase.