We’re now down to our last couple of posts about the Spring 2025 season. If you’re thinking to yourself that it feels like the team have only been on site for a hot second (meaning ‘not very long’ for those not down with Gen Z lingo) then you’re half right: it has been HOT! The team have valiantly braved the near 45-degree heat (that’s over 110 Fahrenheit) for over a month now and while energy is understandably dwindling, they’re still working hard!
Trench 1
In Trench 1 the team have gone down a further 30cm and found more pottery and some red brick remains.
If this is an ancient wadi – a kind of impermanent rainwater runoff, as we think – it’s likely that we’ll find more and more pottery, and more ‘wash’ material like this, with heavy settled material at the bottom. So to understand a bit more, the team has taken soil samples from the profiles/sections to investigate depositional developments.
The team went down to a final depth of 3.5m in this trench. The last two layers leading up to this depth are different – one sandy and soft and the other more solid, with pottery and the remains of a possible bonfire. The pottery was very wet, so the team decided to stop here before they hit groundwater.
It is quite surprising to find an ancient wadi 3.5 m (over 10 feet) deep in an area of the site that was basically flat at the ground surface. It suggests that the ancient land surface was more complex than we had understood.
Trench 2
Trench 2 has proven to contain more familiar archaeological features than Trench 1. Here, at less than a meter in depth, the team found a mudbrick wall. The wall is going N-S with what looks like a corner:
The team sampled this deposit, its bones and sherds, as well as soil samples for archaeobotanical studies (flotation).
Going further down, the trench yielded this rather charming upside-down vessel:
To understand the feature more, the team decided to dig a western extension to the trench rather than dig deeper. This resulted in a 4x5m trench, that has the same layers with lots of pottery:
As well as this gorgeous piece of architectural decoration made out of faience, described by Geoff as the “fanciest thing from the East Mount yet!”:
A wonderful note to finish on, eh?!
