| Entry: | Last diary entry for this season. We spent much of this week recording sections and walls as well as taking down walls that were not going to survive the following year. Space 117 is at a 1.2m depth from the N wall, the void in the centre of the room has been emptied of about 0.7m and still no floors visible in th sides. Likewise space 116 shows no signs of floors, Mary emptied the bin feature to the same depth as the room, its still going down. Good signs for next season. The S wall of 117 has been half exposed, we've left some protective deposits against it, having excavated walls 58 and 63. Wall 63 is a mid phase floating wall, no associated floors or wall returns, all we can hope is that there are remnants of equivalent walls in the N section. Roddy thinks it might be associated with 71 to the N which hasn't been fully exposed yet. The N face of wall 73, (N wall of shrine 10 antechamber), has been exposed revealing a very patchy plaster rendering, the implications of the plstered face are that it is a party wall, however it and 78 are abutted and at this stage it appears that 73 is the later, even if it's the other way there are still no equivalent/associated walls to the N, E or W. What if plaster rendering represents a sealant and not always an internal face? To the E of 73 was a rebuild/late construction 80, this doesn't make any sense either. So, the building comprising spaces 116 and 117 is formed by wall 64 to the N, wall 65 to the E, 79 to the S and party wall 66 dividing the two spaces. As yet no W wall has been defined however there appears to be cut in the NW corner section so maybe the W wall wont be there at all. To the W in space 115, a fairly uniform horizon of laminated ashy midden deposits have been exposed. The deposits fall on an incline from E to W that has been reflected throughout the excavation of all these midden layers. We're practically at the horizon of Mellaarts excavation horizon in what was space 108 where the fine ashy lenses continue with no sign of a change to the massive clayey dumps indicative of building infill. The many cuts and re-cuts in the SE corner of space 113 will have to be continued next season, this area appears to be an oven activiy area represented by the basal remains of a number of ovens/hearths. The obsidian cache and debatage was also found in this area, any significance? Last word on space 106 and 107, what if 106 was never a house/room/building? It didn't have a set of its own walls, none was found to the S, to the N wall 61 was at much higher level and the E wall 58 continues beyond the N section below wall 61. To the W wall 57 is also the E to space 107, however the blocked opening 62 does suggest a throughway between the two spaces, but could that have been a skylight? The fill of 106 also appeared deliberate deposition, maybe it was an infill for a split level star accommodation!! We really do need to get under space 113 to resolve these anomalies, because we started so late in this space we weren't able to get very far. Next year we'll have to concentrate on the N strip of the 20 m2 area as well as continue this years area and it would be really nice to move more of the backfill in shrines 1 and 8 and, we must deal with walls sooner rather than later. One last, last word, I hadn't really envisaged where we would be by the end of this season, on the whole I think its been pretty good, what we've learnt may enable us to work faster next season, thats if everyone agrees. All around its been a challenging season, enjoyable non the less.Entered By: Shahina Farid |
