| Entry: | I drew and removed cluster 18321 today. Under the large sherds in the middle of the cluster one piece of red painted plaster became visible (S1 of 18321). The sherds next to the butress in the south were blackened of their sides which were facing down, as indicated on the drawing.
Even after staring at it for several days now, I still do not have any clever ideas as to how the artefacts relate to each other, so I will have to stick with the current separations of the clusters which turned out to show the process of the excavation rather than clusters that represent separate activities. By "activities" I mean for example one bucket of waste dumped into the space or one vessel in situ or something else. I very much favour the interpretation of a waste area. The artefacts of the clusters are spread in a horizon of the fill that is up to 15cm high at the moment and therefore cannot be sitting on a floor; moreover, all four clusters continue at least some centimeters below the current level. IF very correctly points out that the pigments, different kinds of clay, the hematite stone (X5 of 18321) and basalt plate (X1 of 18321) and the unfired sherds (X9 of 18323 and unfired sherds in room fill 18318) very much indicate waste from a potter's workshop. The animal bones, broken stone and bone artefacts are more normal household waste, probably. What the phytoliths and hopefully some botanic remains and some interesting heavy residue stuff from the room fill do indicate we will know at a later point.
IF and ER pointed out that the waste might not have been dumped into the space from above but rather the access could have been from the southern side which is not yet excavated because it is outside the trench. In order to find out more about that, we would have to tackle this southern part as well. |
