By: Zander Weinberger

I was given two trenches to choose from, and I selected EU 37, which was located on the eastern end of the complex, where I was looking for the eastern wall. There are several questions that kept arising as we gradually dug deeper into our trench, and these remain unanswered. During the first few stratigraphy units, we were new to digging, and every time I saw a large rock, I thought it might be part of a wall, especially if there were 2 of them. However, even though we had 3 or more large rocks lined up in a diagonal line twice, every single one of these was just resting on soil and ended up being rubble, except for one. On the northern side, and running north to south through the middle, there are two lines of rock. However, our trench lead believes that they are not walls, as they are poorly built and not made of the same stone as the other walls. Once we had dug around 18 inches into the soil on the western half of our trench, we decided to take down the bulk, where we found a poorly constructed outer wall. The current theory of what is in our trench is dependent on two things: the outer wall and the drain. In the middle of my trench, there is a drain approximately 18 inches across and 3 feet long. There wasn’t anything in the drain itself, but its presence alone is puzzling. There is scattered plaster flooring all around the trench, particularly near the drain, indicating that water was flowing out of the main building for some reason. The issue with this is that we initially thought the two fake walls were intended to be borders to contain the water, but since they are not actually walls, this cannot be the case. There is also a large, flat piece of plaster on the completely opposite side of the trench, but it is encased in the bulk, so we will not know what that is until next year. It could also just be a drain to dump liquid out, but then the plaster around the drain wouldn’t make sense. Another thing is that all the artifacts we have found have been unrelated. If this area is outside the main complex, it could have been used as a trash pile. Especially since there is evidence in other areas of the site suggesting that they left the site in a hurry, it would make sense to dump things here, but it would still be strange with the drain right there. Overall, digging this trench has been very confusing, and we will not have any answers on what our trench looks like in the greater scope of the site for years. It has been really interesting to discover things alongside professors and to be among the first people analyzing what we uncover. It really makes me want to return to the site in the future, just because I’m so curious about what my trench and the site in general will become when fully uncovered.