| Entry: | Excavater's log, Catal Höyük Day 4, written on paper the 3rd August 2010:
After closing unit 15139 we continue with our mission to explore space 341.
The excavation of the layer unit 15139 proved to be an interesting learning experience. Green concerning anything with tells, mudbrick or mortar, I was taught to recognize a mortar line and succeeded to do so in wall 5056. It - sadly - expired at the end of the wall and did not reappear in the buttress 5057. In consequence I followed the form of the buttress as in higher levels. An animal burrow (loose and crumbly soil inmidst of rather compact soil) destroyed any further hope of identifying mortar.
Drawing the aforementioned unit illustrated to me how a lowly student's ability to recgnize features can be actually taken seriously, something I have not encountered on another excavation, where every line that was to be drawn was defined by the trenchmaster. This (to me) new responsibility takes some getting used to, but the trust shown is appreciated.
Now, after the excitement of unit 15139, the mission continues 10 cm deeper in unit 15152. Here we will try to find mudbrick walls, which might constitute an earlier phase of the building/wall/buttress. This other phase seemed to be indicated in the planum by darker soil at the edge of the walls. So far we have not been successfull, but our mission will continue tomorrow.
SCS out.
EMM and I continued excavating unit 15152 in space 341. EMM managed to fulfill our mission to find a second phase in the south-east corner, whereas I, working in the western space was lucky and had quite a lot of loose soil. Thank you, you little burrowing, wall-destroying beasties, I never found any mortar again.
We seem to have had less pottery and more obsidian flakes on this level, but this is just an impression. The animal bones were pretty fractured, no articulated ones, but more shell fragments than in the unit above (15139).
The painted plaster in the north-eastern corner seems to indicate a surface of some kind, on which this plaster could fall.
SCS over and out. |
