| Entry: | Today was a day of intensive discussion in Sp 310. EMM and me continued scraping away everything that was loose soil in search for a surface or other features. The fact that the level that was supposed to be the arbitrary end of 18343 is very compact and has sherds and other finds lying flat on it - but also a few sherds sticking in it - appeared to PFB, ER and EMM as indicating that it is an fact a surface - a surface that was left exposed for a while and on which people were walking. I was very very sceptical at the beginning, as the material and colours of the surface look exactly the same as the room fill was in the 60-70 above and because of the few vertical sherds. After ER showed me, however, that the fill above this surface peel of it when troweling I am no more convinced. We will maybe only know for sure after going deeper next year and seeing it in the section. The section also shows three other possible surfaces indicated by flat lying sherds and clay lumps, two of which we felt, but slightly undercut this and last season and one if which we missed completely while excavating 18343. 18343 is now visible in the section as a reddish-brown layer - the interface between the above lying greyish deposit is nearly identical with the separation of 18343 and the spit above it = 18326. 18326 is cutting into the reddish layer by a few centimeters - I felt the soil becoming more loose in the last centimeters of the spit.
The yellow plaster construction F.3315 along the East wall F. 3314 was another point of discussion. After exposing more of it, it looks to me as follows: a few centimeters underneath the top level of the new wall in the East that is under 2427 a step-like mudbrick construction reached ca.10cm into the room, its top surface it slightly sloping and plastered over. After the 10cm slope, the construction has a sharp break and the goes down vertically. The plaster on the vertical part seems to be painted red and is heavily truncated by animal holes. That there is mudbrick underneath the plaster is visible in the animal hole sections. ER suggested this slope might be washed down wall plaster, but that would not explain the mudbrick and the very regular and neat form of the feature.
In the NE corner, there is a thin horizonal layer of the same yellowish white plaster preserved (18349) which is visibly connected to F.3315 and most probably was connected to the plaster on the N wall F.3313, but this part has been eaten away by a meep meep. 18349 might have been a floor that is only preserved in the corner or washed down wall plaster. This horizontal bit of plaster does not continue further into the room. Some lumps of the same material that were floating in the room fill are roughly on the same level and might originally have been part of the floor or whatever it is - we will most probably not be able to decide that. Another flat part of plaster is lying in front of the horizontal plaster, not connected to it and sloping down into the fill by 45 degree angle. PFB suggested this might be a constructed feature such as a bin; ER, EMM and I rather believe it to be a broken of part of the floor/ washed down plaster.
Tomorrow we have to scrape more and check on that. |
