| Entry: | Today and yesterday were really good days out in the trench, despite PFB still being slightly ill, UY hitting his head on the sieve installation, and a few minor hand injuries while troweling ferociously. The trench looks more straightforward each day as most of the disturbed soil (where digging is often based on guesswork rather than really seeing the units) is gone now.
Yesterday I did not write my diary because of the villager's party. AH and JJW yesterday and today planned and took out the late pit 16889 under grave 2420. Its cut borders seem pretty clear except the central bottom and the cut in the S, as a large EC potsherd to me seems to stick in EC roomfill as well as in the pit. While JJW says quite rightly that a cut should not be crossed by ingredients of the fill, I argue that sometimes people have no problem leaving stuff sticking out of their cuts, as we do the same with large stones when we cut down a trench section. The pit cut into wall 5051 which seems to form a buttress here, as this reminds me of what we have seen W o wall 2424.
JRM and KJK documented and started to dig the fill of space 340 as unit 16880. Today the mudbricks drove me mad again, because the plaster line along all 5056 did not continue further down, and I could not see any bricks, mortar or whatsoever until I scraped off some more centimeters where white phytolith-like-looking networks of lines appeared. I oberserved the same stuff when taking out the fill 16838 of a pit cutting into roomfill in the corner between walls 2425 and 2426 in cooperation with RJW today, and it may be yet another clue to find the interface between roomfill and walls. The defintion of space 340, however, has become somewhat problematic, as the disturbance 16861 obviously was bigger than initally assumed, so the E wall 5057 is not visible at the moment. Hope it reappears after a thorough drying and cleaning in a few days.
DEL, SO and MB took down the erosion slope/disturbed roomfill E of the 691 E profile in arbitrary spits, today 16886. I really hope the reddish mudbrick MB saw today is not another grave. Wall 2426 starts to appear in the aerial as well now.
After red mudbrick appeared under 16826 (which might have been a looting pit), we decided with Zafer to have the Selcuk team take down the NE corner of the trench a bit more in order to be really sure we do not miss another grave. After all, Selcuk is only staying for another week! Another solid NS mudbrick wall with white plaster was cut into. My fault - I did not point out the plaster line to them (as T7 is backfilled now, there aren't any sandbags around for me to hit and I don't want to abuse flotation samples). The wall appeared in the planum together with the typical white-spotted roomfill abutting another wall running EW, so we are now quite sure that there is no grave anymore :). As everything is now on an equal level again, we should be finally able lo locate the cut of that grave, too. It will be a real effort for Selcuk o dig it, as the red mudbricks and the fill are extremely hard. We also started to take down more soil N of grave 2419 as 1884. A human scapula, an upper arm and ribs discovered were discovered yeserday when digging 16861, and UY dug and documented the reamining mandibula and ribs today as part of a shallow pit disturbing red mudbricks that probably go with the newly exposed grave.
So far we have three different kinds of mudbrick walls in T5: bright albeit soft grey bricks alternating with thick white compact mortar, as in 2426. They are easy to find. Yellow or grey friable soft bricks alternating with crumbly grey mortar as in e.g. walls 5050 or 2429 are extremely soft when still damp and therefore easy to confuse with pit fills etc., but they are clearly visible when dry. So allow for some time when excavating! The last type is made of compact mudbricks that seem to have no mortar at all as 2413. I can really understand Mellaart's decision to give up he West mound after one season. If you have the choice between the picture-book features of the East Mound and this puzzle of decisions between greyish-grey and a-bit-more-brownish-grey, what would you prefer? Mudbrick walls are an elusive enemy on the West Mound, but I do believe we are much smarter than them, and will eventually track them all down! |
