| Entry: | The first skeleton 1884 excavated in space 112 was a tightly crouched adolescent and considering its proximity to the surface was in fairly good condition and the field analysis was that all parts of the skeleton was present. To the south of it a second skeleton 1885 was found to extend into the southern wall and on investigation is seen to be within/below a platform over which the southern wall was constructed. This survives only in section and on initial inspection it appears that more than one skeleton is present. The skeleton is still in situ, the wall has been drawn in plan and elevation and is in the process of excavation. The wall comprises two brick types, orange and orange/browm and a beige mortar. Elsewhere in space 112 a section was established on an east-west axis and the northern half of the room excavated as ***. This was a very heavily eroded deposit which may have represented patchy floors (basically the horizon that Mellaart left). To the east of the skeletons was a circular expanse of burnt/scorched material roughly in the location of Mellaarts oven/hearth feature. This was half sectioned as 1888 but then was found to dive off in all directions under the floors. This section line through the oven/hearth was then extended and aseries of floor remnants was excavated as 1891, 1896, and 1898. Today Jon has traced a larger expanse of burning and burnt oven lining and clay ball fragments. This appears to underly patches of flooring and room fill and so what we might have is a heap of fired material from an earlier phase poking through the later phase. Craigs area, space 113 (Mell house 7), is really exciting. Again we only have a section of the room because of where our trench limit and the platform in the south east corner that Naomi began excavating last season, shows on Mellaarts plan. A number was allocated to the cleaning of this space 1866, a small deposit 1871 in the north east corner was interpreted as packing material, too little survived to make a valid interpretation, similarly 1897 was a 'packing' deposit in the northwest corner and a series of packing and floors in the SW corner were excavated as 1874, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879 and 1881. Clearly all these deposits were deposits that Mellaart had underdug. a uniform horizon was reached across the entire area, interpreted as a surface 1883, but not a plastered floor. This was uneven, very worn and cracked but very compact and smooth and was clearly associated with the platform. The excavation of this revealed a relativly thick, homogenous and sterile deposit which must represent part of the room fill i.e. to raise the floor? and its upper boundary forming a floor. This deposit ran up to the northern face of the platfrom which was plastered but lipped up to the western face to become practically flush with the top of the platfrom.Entered By: Shahina Farid |
