Woolley's Field Note Cards | Woolley's Field Note Cards

Omeka ID:	946

Transcription:	TW TTD - Trench was cut fm - E corner o - Neb. Temenos to TTA. In - corner intramural chamber at a depth o 190 tr was a brick pavement bounded by 2 walls o wch - SE wall was parallel w - SE temenos wall, - other not quite parallel w - NE temenos wallÂ : - latter was continued by a wall (broken through by - inner Tem Wall) in wch tr was a doorwayÂ : & after - doorway it broke away again. This wall was o mixed bricks, 026 x 017 xÂ ? & was poorly builtÂ : its thickness was apparently 070 but as - outer face had been destroyed by - trench dug to lay - founds o - Tem. Wall (wch lay low here & had cut through both wall & pavement) - measurement was not certain: this was - case w - SE wallÂ : - wall running N had, at - doorway a thickness o 065. At first sight it looked as if we had got - older Temenos Wall, but - masonry is against this & it is prob. only a house. Beyond this, for about 36.00 - trench exposed at a depth o c. 140 below - surface (a little higher than - door threshold) a floor o beaten mud, extremely hard, sloping slightly down to - SW. Below this was fairly clean soil & some ashes. It seemed to be pretty early & corresponded well w - level o -

Location	Context Title	Context Description	Description (Modern)
	TTD	TTD is shorthand for Trial Trench D, one of two initial trenches dug in season 5 to extend TTA from season 1. Woolley dug TTD and TTE to search for graves in what he believed was a potentially vast cemetery. Neither of these trenches were ever mapped and no aerial photos show them, as by the time of the 1930 RAF photograph the trial trenches had been so extended that most of the Royal Cemetery area had already been exposed. Luckily, Woolley's field records allow us to reconstruct the direction and extents of the trench. He states that it ran from the head (northeast end) of TTA and extended southeastward to the east corner of the Neo-Babylonian temenos wall, making it about 65 meters in length. Though he does not tell us its width it is likely that it was about 4 meters, the same as the measurable trial trenches A, B, and C. TTD did not reveal much, but it was only excavated to a depth of around 2 meters. As Woolley reports in the Antiquaries Journal volume 7 page 1: "The trench to the temenos angle produced no sign of buildings, but for the greater part of its length a floor of beaten mud, lying about 1.75 m. below the present surface, at which level we stopped short." It had just missed the south corner of the Mausoleum of the Ur III kings, and when area PG was expanded beneath the level of TTD in season 8, many graves were recorded here.	(none)