| Entry: | I feel I must split these diary entries as they’re far too long. This section will recap on the strstigraphical history of the spaces under excavation and the story so far. I can’t actually remember what I wrote when because of the entries that were lost so bear with me if I repeat myself.
Building 2, space 117. A cleaning layer 1863 was allocated to this space at the beginning of the season which has no stratigraphical value. 1868 was an arbitrary layer stratigraphically below 1827 from last season. 1872 was a lense or small layer of ashy domestic type waste that separated 1868 from the earlier dump fill 1873 which represents the primary dump infill in this space. This overlay 2024, the orange-yellow layer (almost like a skim) that can be traced in patches across the whole space. 2024 was seen to overlie floor deposits which whether primary or secondary defined the next stage of strategy. None of the wall faces had been exposed for two reasons, one to protect the plaster face and second to record the sections and enable Wendy to take any relevant micromorph. samples. Once the floor lavel was defined it was necessary to split the area into metre squares however the whole extent of the room needed to be defined first, and as yet the western wall had not been located. The sections against the north and east walls was excavated as one unit per wall face 2029 against the north wall 64 and 2078 against the east wall 66. The south and west walls were excavated in broad bands of dump deposits and matched up to those that were excavated previously. So 1650 sealed a pit cut 1665 filled by 1660 that was half sectioned last year and dug this year as cut 2073 and fill 2067, the fill was quite blocky and clayey whilst the fill was none too regular but serves an unknown function. This cut dump layer 2097 equated to 1620 and 1692, below was 2303 equated to 1692 and 1821, next was 2308 equated to 1822 and 1824 and then 2321 equated to 1827 and 1868. 2321 then overlay 1872 which brought it back into the current sequence but below 1872 was 2329, a dump demolition deposit confined along the western edge of the space and therefor interpreted as originating from the western wall, and equated to 1873. It contained a bone cluster 2088. 2329 sealed the bucrania 2375, and layer 1889 a deposit of clayballs and bone contained within a clay lined bin in the southwest corner. It also sealed a ‘retrieval’ pit cut 2060 filled by 2048 and pits against the post impressions on the north wall cuts 2371 and 2373 filled by 2370 and 2372 respectively. These are still under excavation. The units excavated from the southern wall (not yet equated to last years units were, from the top 2087, 2089, 2304, 2307, 2311, 2313, 2320 and 2322 which overlay 2024.
The space as it is now has a crawl hole/opening that links spaces 116 and 117 and a mirrored crawl hole/opening in the western wall, this implies there is another space to this building however the opening may turn out to be a niche. In the southwest corner is a double clay lined basin, the extreme south western one abuts a later section of wall constructed over what appears to be a fire installation. The anomally is that this section of wall appears to be a continuation of the southern wall of spaces 108, 107 and 106, excavated last season. As I remember we never defined the southern wall of space 106, so either the southern walls of these spaces were originally the southern wall of space 115, ie. a retaining wall for the midden deposits which were then reused for the later buildings ( spaces 108 and 107), but for some reason there was no southern wall for space 106, all a bit confusing. All this only turned up yesterday so it hasn’t really been addressed. But I’ve just had a thought, if we have a crawlhole/opening in the west wall then this later wall will be part of building 2. Anyway I think that all this illustrates that it will be possible to phase neighbouring buildings which is something that a lot of people are concerned about. Back to the lay out of space 117, There are two niches centrally located along the northern wall, one above the other and flanked on either side by post impressions indicated by lipped plaster edges and these are mirrored in the southern face of the wall. We haven’t established yet whether the large, thats very large, bucrania, found towards the west wall was associated with this building, whether it was deliberately dismantled and discarded or whether it collapsed or whether the plaster surrounding it was part of its moulding. A fragment of possible wood beam associated with the crawlhole/opening to the west was found in the form of salt impressions. Lots of exciting things are showing up but not yet investigated.
Space 116 Two cleaning numbers have been allocated to space 116, 1664 and 2071, neither of which have any stratigraphical value. 1664 was the last unit number excavated last season and 1803 and 1812 had been allocated last season but not excavated. 1812 is a void unit as we couldn’t work out what it had been allocated to. 1803 was an arbitrary layer infill deposit below which an organic deposit was traced. This deposit is as yet unidentified, its initial interpretation was felt, the reasoning being the colour, the form of it which faithfully followed the underlying undulations and hollows as opposed to filling and levelling the hollows. Many people have looked at this under the microscope but nothing about it has been resolved. There are also several layers interleaved by other deposits, much the same as a roll of carpet or a swatch of material would produce when thrown into a dump; soil would infiltrate folds and creases by movement in the ground possibly by bioturbation and the whole would be a nightmare to dig, much the same as 2011! This is still in situ as it was agreed to excavate the west section that had been left in for Wendy blocks. The west section had been established last season once the top of feature 72 had been defined. So overlying the first unit this year was 1649 and 2016 and 2032 were similar deposits but lay either side of the wall of the feature, on excavation of these deposits it was clear that feature 72 wasn’t what we had iitially thought, in fact it was brick collapse fallen on edge and in such a manner to confuse us totally, no wonder poor Mary had such difficulty. This material was then represented by unit 2051 which had collapsed over a lump of what appears to be moulded plaster with an inner core of different types of clays (general opinion is that it looks like a marbled cake!). This does look as if it some collapsed moulded feature but as yet its still under excavation. 2066 and 2070 were the next two units that lay on either side of the plaster lump both similar deposits of fine accumulated layers and lenses of organic matter; coprolite, phytolith, ash, lumps and fragments of plaster and brick. Below 2066 was a concentrated deposit of owl pellets 2091, this generated a lot of excitement and much to our benefit Peter Andrews was still with us and was able to advise what to do and the information these deposits would give us. The pellets overlay 2323 another skim of this so called felt. The southern section is now under excavation in order to release more of the pellets and more of the felt.Entered By: Shahina Farid |
