| Entry: | 8/8/10
Continued work on U.15158, expanding and levelling in the SW corner, shaping it up into a decent square between buttresses 5053, 5054 and 5057.
Initially I saw two plaster lines – one running E-W, delineating buttress 5057, and one line starting from it and running diagonally westwards for about 30cm. There was some mudbrick associated with it. After exposing the plaster of the buttress (disturbed by a meep-meep hole), the diagonal 'wall' seemed to connect only at the higher level of the plaster. IF suggested it was may have formed a floor of a later phase. However, the mortar and plaster did not seem structured enough to convince me it was an earlier or later wall. They are more likely to be part of the pile of construction materials in the SW corner. A lot of plaster and clay / mortar lumps and plaster came out in that area, resembling the fill of the adjacent spaces 340 and 341. the bone tool, X2 and a nice small half-pot sherd came out of that area also.
Another thing to note – my trowel cut through a compact patch of phitoliths, about 3-5cm thick, on the surface, just by buttress 5057. EMM, working on pit U.15160 to the East of the buttress said she observed a similar patch of phitoliths on her side. That could be regarded as a separate event or a micro depositional phase? Another interpretation that comes to mind is that hay may have been mixed with mud into the plaster, as they still do in villages in Bulgaria.
At this point I reckon my unit represents the space between the 3 buttresses, maybe centre of the basement. If that turns out to be true, it makes sense that its fill is heterogenous – construction debris from spaces 340, 341 and the phitoliths and bones in pit 15160. It may have been the least structurally resistant part of the basement, and therefore, a mixing point of heterogenous mess. The rodents have helped mix the material around further, and have eaten the plaster of the buttress.
/Off to a Efes and pot refits. |
