9th
Defining mud-brick walls
There was a wedding party last night – it started about 10.00pm and ended in the small hours of this morning (neither of us checked exactly when!). The music was very, very loud, but we did manage to get some sleep. The journey to Daba took us twice as long as usual today as it turned out that Saturday is suq day in the only town on our drive – Riyad. The through road was jam-packed with people, animals, stalls and two-way traffic (including us) trying to get through gaps.that were frequently smaller than a car width. We returned after work by a different road and will certainly know not to try driving through Riyad on a Saturday again!
Having made good progress with the basic planning of the tell, we decided today to start defining some of the features visible on the surface so that we can plot their positions more accurately. The northern end of the site has high mounds which contain mud brick walls but erosion, due to weather and time, and debris left by the collapse of the walls often obscure their edges so we need to clean the surface traces to define them more precisely for planning.
Jeff, with our SCA Inspector Salwa, showing Mohammed and Ahmed how to define mud brick walls
A mud-brick wall (after cleaning the surface) with burned material against its face.
