Building 129

Area: North 

Location: between B1 and B77 

B129 is a highly eroded building located within the North Shelter between building 1 and building 77. Its main axis sits on an east-west alignment. The building is about 11 m long and 5m wide. According to the plans drawn during the surface scrape in in the 90s, it is comprised of spaces 74, 75, 76 and 77. As excavations focused on buildings 1 and 5 immediately to its north, building 129 was never thoroughly investigated until 2014. In fact, a walkway and a bridge covered much of its extent and possibly even brought about some damage to its already eroded features.

Investigations to the building began in 2014 where it became evident that the division between spaces 74 and 75 was no longer visible. Also, it became clear that the dogleg that was assigned as space 77 actually belongs to the building below B129. However, space 77 has been retained in our records to belong to B129 as a number of burials that were excavated in 2012 that belong to B129 were assigned this space number.

In short currently B129 consists of two spaces, one large side room and a main space. Spaces 74 and 75, which make up the side room have been equated to each other, as have spaces 76 and 77, which constitute the main room of the building.

B129 was built above the burnt remains of B131. The northern wall of the building was first defined in 1998. It has been discussed by CC that 'it lies over a series of dump deposits which have built up against the southern wall of B1 so the construction of this building must be later than the construction of B' (F218, 1998). The same wall was excavated in 2014 as F.7558. The western wall was defined and excavated as F.7559 and the southern wall as F.7560. These walls contained only a few courses of brick and mortar. The eastern wall of the building has not been able to be defined, although it seems to have been sitting above the heavily burnt eastern wall of B.131. We can deduce this through the location of a number of burials excavated mostly in 2012, that were cut into the building infill of B.131. This building infill abuts the eastern wall of B.131.

The burials contained within this building contained many finds, such as beads and two obsidian mirrors, even though the skeletons are not in good condition due to their proximity to the surface. 

Number of Related Diary Entries: 5

Conservation Recorded: No

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