| Entry: | SCS continued working on the clarification of Features 2429, 2428, 3327, 5052 and 3320. Unfortunately, the decision abutting/ binding into for F.2428 and 5052, and also 2429 and 3327, is still not possible - partially because of the rodent holes and partially because 2429 is leaning towards north and our straight planum therefore cuts it in a unfortunate angle. SCS is now drawing the situation and we might take off more of the top part of buttress F.5052 afterwards to check ist relation with 2428 and 3320. 3320 seems to cut the eastern half of 5052 in the upper part of the buttress, while the lower one seems intact. Or, as PFB suggested, we have two successive phases of the buttress here, the younger buttress being narrower, in what case 3320 might be built against it and be contemporary.
This northeast corner (Space 446, eastern part of Space 450, F.3320, 3321, 3329, 3328, 3326, 3324, 3330) will be the main focus for the rest of the season, as stratigraphy is complicated here and we wish to be able to see our first complete building! The part east of where SCS is working is still tricky, though, and excavation has to be slow and careful here. BOD and XHB removed the floors in Space 446 (15170, 15190, 15191) and F.3322 today and started going down here. Just under the two floors in 446, they found a cluster of animal bones and sherds (15198) lying horizontally in very hard fill (15194) and underneath, thin and colourful layers of fill became visible. These might represent phases of usage. It will be nearly impossible to separate this thin layers when exavation from the top down, to we decided to document the section through 15194 properly instead. BOD started drawing it, while XHB moved a bit further east, wanting to scrape this part and clarify the northern limit of wall F.3330, only to find another beautiful floor (15196), orange this time, and even containing a post hole (15197). This floor only appeared in the end of the day, so we will continue to expose it tomorrow.
LHK finished excavation in Space 448 (15184). We will leave this space as it is until next season, as it seems rather empty so far and other spots in the trench are more urgent to clarify. This is also the case with spaces 340, 341 and 345. 449, where EMM is still finding large amounts of finds (15180), will still be continued until all these clusters end. We hope to do more work in 310 (maybe find the or a floor) and 447 (have a look under floor U.15167).
LKH and PFB also did further scraping on top of F.5075 to verify that no possible interface between an original buttress which was later exteded to form a wall is visible - 5075 seems to be one solid wall. I still find it very probable, though, that it is a later addidition and Space 345 and 447 were one space at some time.
Pit F.3331 is becoming more and more interesting. JFB continued exposing the human bones today. There are three clusters of bones: already yesterday we removed the baby bones (15189) under the uncercut buttress F.3301. I continued to excavate the fill and expose the cut. The pit (that is, the cut), does not seem to be finished yet, as the mudbrick of the two buttresses still does not appear, where there southern edges should be. Under the reddish, very homogeneous and loose fill (15179), though, another layer started to appear today, very heterogeneous, containing lime, clay, pigments, charcoal, all kinds of colours, looser than 15179 in some spots, harder in others (15195). We are removing the rest of 15179 and exposing the interface between the two layers, which is fairly clear. Today, JFB exposed the skull (15192) east of 15189, close to the northern limit of the pit and west of the large stone. 15192 also contained some other bones, such as a clavicula. East of the stone, under buttress F.3302 there is another cluster of human bones (15199), containing some toe bones but apparently not in articulated position so far. More stray human bones appear everywhere in the northern part of the pit fill, as well. The three clusters seem to be fully exposed at the present level, maybe there is more to come underneath. We have to remove the massive stone, though, first, and probably the upper parts of the buttresses, as they are undercut very far by the pit and when digging down become more and more unstable. We are will thus document the state of the excavation tomorrow and then remove what is in our way.
F.3331 is a very odd pit - what happened? It seems to contain loads of disposed Byzantine building material (tile, stone, clay,) and garbadge (Charcoal, broken pots, maybe organic material?) in both layers (15179 and 15195), mixed with some Chalcolithic stuff that the Byzantine people probably dug up somewhere else, plus some fragmented skeletons of unknown date. It might well be that the human bones are Chalcolithic, also dug up by Byzantines somewhere on the mound, and then disposed in the pit. But where are the other parts of the skeleton? Why make such a nice and regular pit cut and then just put the dead together with rubbish? |
