| Entry: | Last excavation day. After a big push downwards in space 450 yesterday (about 40cm down), today was spent extending the same level to space 452. Then – polishing the buttresses' plaster, smartening out the profiles, emptying meep-holes, etc. In sum, moving all that soil (nearly 2000L in two days) was very satisfying; the sound of crashing pots under the pick axe – not so much.
Layer 15340 in space 450 was stacked with pottery, concentrated around the middle, possibly associated with articulated vertebrae (X8). Several vessel profiles of bowls; a few sherds with previously unfamiliar geometric decoration pattern; Space 452 was less dense with ceramics, but washing the finds turned out a nice sherd of incised Late Neolithic rim, and an odd protruding rim sherd of fine ware.
Despite /or thanks to/ the pick-axing, some very interesting X finds came up:
- a bone stick (X19) came out from underneath F.3328 – it looks like the bone stick found in space 449 at the same level. IF suggested it was used for painting and/or burnishing pottery.
- Several ground stones (X1, 21, 31, 32 (stayed in!), 45) and in space 452, some ground stone (X1) associated with a thick slab of plaster red and white multi-layered plaster (X30) and a light red stone/pigment (X31);
- a lot of clay balls (X7, 9, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24-27, 33-44, 46, 47) kept popping out of the area around the profile leading to space 340 and buttress F.5053. They should have been designated as a cluster, but too late now. It looks like space 340 will contain plenty more clayballs, like space 449.
In terms of architecture, the depth of U.15340 shed some light on the stratigraphy in the NW corner. F.3328, 3329, 3334 seem to lay on roomfill, respecting the buttresses, and hence must be later than them. The plaster on the buttresses is much clearer and straight now. The wall E of F.3329 in space 452 was problematic to find as its plaster line was heavily damaged by meep-holes.
As this area seems to be the transition area between surrounding rooms in building 98, it is interesting to think about passage in and out of this space. A possible passage to space 446 appeared in the NW corner, but it is quite small and the walls slope over it.
Building 98 feels like a building from the inside now – deep and plastered. Next year will tell more |
