J. H. Young, II Atmeidan 1939, 1947John Howard Young

85 Trench 2

wall and closes to it have been temporarily called 3 a.

STRATUM 3: Outside the wall (S) stratum 3 is a filling, undoubtedly deliberately laid, of small xaxlas stones & dust - approximately the size of a modern trap-rock filling. This layer, directly S of the wall, is precisely even with the wall's first course, both above and below. To the east, after the end of the wall, the stratum thins out to a narrow striae on the east edge of the trench, about 20 cm. below the surface and only 6 cm. thick; it was apparently here the paving of a road or path leading out to the SE, and banked up against the wall - its rise is to conform with the rise of bedrock to the E. The stratum continues even with the wall's first course again across the east end and continues northward within the cut bedrock. in a narrow strip less than a meter in width.

STRATUM 4 a. This stratum, close to the wall, is a hard back of xaxlas stones & mud; it formed the foundation of the wall, resting on bedrock & extending out from the wall S and E. N of this looking to the north, where stratum 4, red sandy soil, extends on toward the wall.

Bedrock: South of the wall the bedrock has been trimmed down to almost a meter below the surface, and the first foundation of the wall rest directly on it. This level extends east to the very er south-east corner of the trench, where it is the normal

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Trench 2 86

bedrock surface. Following down the east edge of the trench, however, the rock's normal level rises to a height corresponding to the top of the first wall course; but a space of a meter east of the wall end has been quarried down to the lower level. In section [illegible] the east. ledge of bedrock this format is interrupted by a large round cavity; beyond this the rock was apparently weak and so was cut down, a meter out from the wall, another thirty centimeters to take a lower course of stones. This low level is maintained throughout the eastern northern part of section 1 except for the eastern ledge of rock, at the original surface.