| Entry: | Finished working in spaces 150/151 several days ago and have been busy knocking down various walls and doing paperwork since then. This diary is basically a note for whoever digs the area next year whether it is me or someone else.
Spaces 150/151 were basically left at the point where all the post-use infilling had been removed and we were down onto floors or features all over. Previous work was described in my diary of the 13th of September. A base plan 97/644 was drawn of the whole space showing what I thought was going on. Elevations exist for the faces of the southern and western walls and the upper part of the eastern wall. There are also elevations of the north face of wall 97 and the upper part of the western face of walls 97/99.
The first thing to be tackled next year as far as I can see is oven F87 which should either be half sectioned or quadranted as it will probably be impossible to remove the infilling without the structure collapsing. Particular care needs to be taken with trying to confirm that the entrance is at the western end and with all the layers which seem to survive beneath it. Was the oven re-lined on the outside?
Then the area to the east of the baulk north of the oven could be tackled - the squares for this have already been numbered - (2349), (2350) and (2353). It might be better however to leave this area as a continuing baulk for Wendy, especially given the problem of the overhanging wall.
Oven 252 can be excavated, this basically means half sectioning the superstucture in space 150, recording it, digging the rest and investigating the wall stub to the west. The infilling left inside the wall should probably left until the wall comes down.
After this things get more complicated. It appears that walls 97 and 99 can probably go although a few small flooor fragments that survive next to them need investigation. There is also the lump next to the west face of wall 97 but given the pillars that have been left in this may have to be dug out of sequence after the walls come down. Most of the elevations of these walls have not been drawn. Presumably the space will then need re-number ing again - oh joy.
The south-west corner is still a bit ambiguous and needs careful cleaning and attention - is there a post-retrival cut lurking there?
After all this it should be time to dig floors - perhaps the 'basin' area should go first.There are a number of plaster lines showing up near the northern limit of excavation suggesting a change so these will need looking at when the floors are dug. These may be linked to a later step/platform clearly visible in the northern section which was missed in plan and must only have extended into the area by a couple of centimetres. This has not been recorded.
There is still an out of phase piece of wall 90 left to the west but the removal of this is dependent on progress in space 112.
Good luck in 1998 (especially if its me back again).Entered By: Craig Cessford |
