Unit 23147

Category: Cut    dug in 2017

Area: North 

Interpretive Categories: Pit 

Data Category Information: Description: pit

Description: Big pit in the room fill of B-139 

Discussion: Unit only partially documented in the southern part of the B-139, the rest of this unit, including the fills had been removed within the arbitrary layer U23155. Anyway, the dimension and shape of the cut had been recorded taking points with the total station in the booths sides, which will be used to draw the shape of the pit in arcgis.

This unit was exposed after remove packing/leveling layers for the construction of B-131 (U23131 and 23110=23090=23084). The cut had a kind of rectangular shape and extended between the northern and southern walls of B-139 in the central part of the area. Is quite big 3.80 m long for 4.87 m width and around 1.20 m deep, the bottom is pretty flat in the central western part of the pit, and from here the pit is smoothly sloping to the east forming a kind of depression in the western edge around 1.20 weight deeper than the rest of the pit. The sides were vertical, at least this was much clearer in the eastern edge, the western edge was a bit more diffuse and not that vertical. The cut was filled with four different layers, the U23159, U23145, the U23142 very compact and thinner, and a redeposit midden in the very top U23139. All of them had been deposit sloping in direction W-E, being the western part the highest of the pit.

The stratigraphic sequence documented during the digging process and trough the section exposed indicates that the building was abandon and partially demolish being the primary room infill U23253 deposit. After that the building started to be filled with room infill U23144. From eastern part of the building probably different midden layers where deposit against the eastern wall of the building (U23143).
Maybe, this is very difficult to confirm, when all this deposits where almost covering the entire abandoned building, the pit U23147 was made, and truncate the layers mentioned above (U23143, 23144, 23153). The use or intention of this big pit is difficult to say, but we can suggest two possibilities, the third can be the combination of the both that we will describe below. Maybe the pit is related with a quarrying activity to extract building material and used for discard of rubbish like the pits U13130, 13135, 13128 or 13148 for example. Is also possible, and for us very realistic that the pit was made with the intention to demolish the eastern wall of the building, the meaning of that nevertheless is impossible to say. This activity had also been documented in other buildings in the north shelter as B-64 or the cut 10387. This second hypothesis is also supported by the fact that the pit is deeper and narrow in the part where the eastern wall was placed, and there is clear evidences that the wall was truncated. Is also in that part where the pit is higher and from where the deposits had been placed, sloping in direction E-W. Also close to the western edge of this deeper depression, more or less in the bottom of the pit, we documented remains of a collapsed wall, probably rubble for the wall demolition, laying on the primary room infill.
On top of this cut different packing layers were placed just for levelled and compact the area for the construction of the B-131. Is difficult to say if the collapsed wall (F8378) documented in the western part of the building, below to this packing layers is related with the pit episode or happens later when they decided to build the B-131 in this area. (CB-24/05/17)

After remove all the fills in the pit, a collapsed wall U23166 was exposed. At the beginning we thought that the remains of bricks and mortar visible were consequence of the process of removing the wall. Right now seems more realistic that the wall collapsed before the pit event, because is inside the edges of the pit and is a bit truncated for the pit itself.
Is interesting to see that the bricks and mortar of this collapsed wall are completely different for the bricks and mortar that are visible in the remains of the eastern wall F8387. Is also interesting to see that the wall seems that was collapsed in two times, first the bigger part placed in the center (the bricks and mortar are placed N-S) and on top of it there is another part of the wall that collapsed later probably from the north (the bricks and mortar are placed direction NW-SE) and have still plaster remains attached. (CB-28/0/17) 

Shape: Not defined in plant, was only partially excavated. Seems prety rectangular 

Sides: Vertical in the easter part and irregular in the western part 

Base Break: Vertical in the easter part and irregular in the western part 

Base: A bit concave but also flat in the central part, is a big cut. 

Orientation: East-west (we don't now the extension towards the norh) 

Unit Stratigraphy (as recorded in the field): above: (Click to view the record) 23153 below: (Click to view the record) 23131 

Number of Related Diary Entries: 0

Settlement Phase:

Associated Mellaart Levels (from Space): Unassigned at present 

Associated Hodder Level (from Space): Unassigned at present 

Finds Room Information:

All material from site passes through the finds room for washing and separating before it is passed onto the various lab teams. The finds room keeps a basic inventory of what is found. A finds material type list is given here. Further analytical detail maybe provided by the Lab Team data below.

X Finds Material: nothing recorded  

Finds Material Stored: nothing recorded  

Lab Team Data

Please note the list below does not represent everything that might have been found in this Unit, but represents the datasets we have available on-line. Please contact us to obtain more information about this Unit.

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