| Entry: | I started excavating another spit of 10cm in the room fill of Sp 310 today (Unit 18318). I started in the S and middle of the room where there are no clusters of artefacts. The fill is still heterogeneous, contains lumps of yellowish, greyish and orange (sometimes burnt?) clay, charcoal, chalk ?, lime. However, while all the fill I dug during this season up to now was very lumpy, at the bottom of 18318 the soil seems to become softer, finer and contains fewer lumps of clay.
After removing the soil in the part of the room where there are no clusters, I started removing the soil between the artefacts of cluster 18323 which took up a lot of time as the cluster turned out to be very dense and contains more artefacts than was visible beforehand. Apart from the large pot sherds and the one stone artefact I already saw yesterday, one more stone artefact (X3), one bone artefact (X4), an unburnt minature clay vessel (?? X2) and a lot of animal bones became visible during excavation today. There are also several large sherds to the NW of cluster 18323 so that the separation of cluster 18319 and 18323 is not as clear as yesterday any more; up to now, however, there still seems to be some space with fewer artefact between the two clusters. When tackling cluster 18319 tomorrow I will see if the differentiation still holds true.
I took several samples of different kinds of clay from the soil between cluster 18328 today (labelled S8-S11 of room fill 18318). It might be that these clay lumps are particularly frequent and diverse inside the cluster; it might as well be that I just did not notice them in the rest of the roomfill because of the higher speed of excavation. The same is true for small portions of phytoliths and one small piece of red painted plaster. I will try to clarify that while continuing the spit tomorrow.
By now it seem clear that Space 310 was used as a dump area after it had come out of use as a inhabited space. IF believes that a lot of the dump might have been waste from pottery production - therefore the clay lumps. ER first tsuspected that the "emtpy" part of the space in the south and middle might be disturbed and this might be the reason for the absence of finds clusters, but the soil in this part is very compact and does not differ from the soil towards the N, E and W. As visible in plan 09/208, the middle of the space contains a lot of large and small clay lumps as well. I rather think that artefacts and raw materials like clay were thrown into the space from above the W, E and N walls and that the heavier artefacts cluster along the walls while the lighter clay might have rolled towards the middle of the space.
It also seems to become more and more clear that there are horizons of artefacts in the space. Last year, when excavation began there were no particular clusters of artefacts visible in the space; when digging deeper, AHW had a more or less horizontal layer with clusters of artefacts, especially pot sherds (17241, 17242, 17208). After removing those no new clusters appeared. When starting excavation this year there were not a lot of artefacts visible which were sticking in the room fill. The first spit of room fill I removed this year (18303) did contain a lot of finds but no clusters that had obviously all fallen onto a kind of horizontal surface. The latter however does seem to be true for clusters 18319, 18320, 18321 and 18323 which therefore seem to represent another "phase" of dumping. As most of the sherds, bones and artefacts are on or some centimeters above the level I reached today, the cluster seem to be more or less finished. If it holds true that the soil also changes and does contain fewer clay lumps underneath 18318 then this might be the bottom of an actual phase of activity in the Space. The ca. 5-15cm horizons between those horizons that contain a lot of pot sherds, bones and other artefacts might have been built up mostly by organic waste. I will have to check this assumption when going deeper.
It becomes more and more difficult to navigate in Space 310 without stepping on clusters. The strip of sun which reached the southern half after breakfast is also a problem. I had to remove the unburnt clay vessel (X4) from the cluster 18323 today in order to protect it from the sun, so that it could not be photographed in relation to the rest of the cluster.
P.S.: Just stopped by the pottery lab and IF pointed out to me that X1 of cluster 18321 and a stone fragment from the pottery bag of cluster 18316 on top of 18321 can be joint together to make up a nearly complete artefact of dark grey basalt. The artefact is flat with a kind of handle at the back. As there are traces of red pigment visible in the pores of the stone, IF thinks this might have been a small plate for grinding pigment stones on its surface. |
