 | Pit Z | In season 8, Woolley expanded the Royal Cemetery (area PG) to the southwest and northeast. After digging more of the southwestern extent, he decided to investigate deeper still in two pits larger than those he dug in season 7 but not as large as Pit F in the Temenos area. These two pits were initially Pits I and J in the sequence but confusion with lettering caused Woolley to begin at the end of the alphabet and rename these pits Y and Z.
Pit I was located northwest of Pit J along the southwestern line of the Royal Cemetery excavation and was quickly renamed Pit Z. There are very few references to Pit I in the field records. Legrain lists PIG as a pit near PFT and the final letter G shows that it was within the Royal Cemetery area rather than the Temenos area. Pit Z is about 50 meters southeast of Pit F. The published stratigraphic profile shows it to be 6 meters wide at the top and 4 meters wide at the bottom. Its sides sloped in order to prevent collapse. It reached just below sea level and it revealed more of the seal impression strata that ran through the cemetery. This pit and Pit Y both uncovered graves earlier than the Royal Cemetery main burials. These graves were eventually given JNG numbers, a continuous sequence across Pits W, X, Y, and Z that collectively came to be considered area PJ. Several, however, were initially given PG numbers and later renumbered in the JNG sequence. | (none) |