| Entry: | Apart from excavation, micromorphological samples were taken in our trench today by LMS. The specialists came in to take samples of three deposits and surfaces in the southern section of Space 342 and of wall F.2424 in Space 342. We intend to sample wall material from every space, but this will be done in the next days.
BOD finished exposing and documenting the accumulation of plaster lumps U.15373 and the pottery and horn cluster U.15377 in Space 450. The cluster U.15377 seems to run under the plaster lumps of U.15373, there excavation window therefore at the moment shows two distinct stratigraphical units. After this, excavation in Space 450 was stopped for now, as U.15373 continues into the fill on top of which bench F.3334 is still sitting. In order to fully understand U.15373, which might be a deliberately positioned feature, the bench will be take out next week. BOD therefore interrupted her work in Space 450 and moved into Space 343. She started cleaning the sections and planum. Space 343 has a complicated sequence of constructions, especially in ist northern part, therefore we want to have a closer look at ist walls and buttresses before further excavation.
DLG did a very good job at exposing the mudbricks of burial F.3342 today, which are grey but distinguishable from the surrounding by their harder consistency. The cut of this burial is also easily visible, because it cut into the wall (F.3344) DLG spotted yesterday. F.3344 consist of the same reddish brick and reddish lumpy mortar as the other structures surrounding Space 343. It is also roughly parallel to wall F.2425/5050 and therefore might represent the western wall of the space. We compared top heights and found out that the top of F.3344 is 65cm higher up than the top of F.2425/5050. Therefore, if F.3344 is the outer wall of Sp.343, it is not only well preserved ca.40cm below topsoil (which is not the case with all our walls), but might also be over 1m high.
F.3342 is a very small burial judging from the mud brick construction. It might therefore contain the skeleton of a young person. It was very interesting to see that the cut made in order to put in the brick for the burial is actually only a few centimeters wider than this mudbrick cist.
CMB continued to excavate disturbed fill (U.15379) to get down to the level of walls and undisturbed room fill in Sp.342. The continuation of wall F.3341, whose eastern part we saw yesterday, seems heavily disturbed, but no clear outlines of pits or other disturbing features could be defined so far. Instead, a wall was found directly next to where wall F.3341 would have been expected, running parallel with only a thin gap in between. This wall (F.3345) was spotted only in the section that was created during removing U.15379. It consists of a very soft, slightly reddish grey brick which we would never have seen in plan, also because this wall as well is disturbed. F.3345 most probably represents the northern wall of a building south of Space 342. CMB will continued to level this area in order to spot Chalcolithic constructional features and disturbances.
HLS scraped, photographed and drew the outlines of pit F.3331 and of burial F.3343 (the part inside the trench). It is now clear that the burial cut into the pit, but not much, probably only a few centimeters when assuming regular symmetric outlines of the pit. She then started to take of the first arbitrary layer of pit fill (U.15387).
PTW documented (drawing, photogrammetry) the elevation showing the northern faces of F.3301 and F.3302 with the room fill section in between them. Beforehand, he scraped the elevation. It turned out that last year we did not really recognise the features. Last year we noticed that F.3301, being a buttress in ist upper part and a seemingly cut wall in ist lower part closed the older Space 453 towards south. After scraping this year, it turned out that the wall is much higher than seen laster year. The plaster was only visible in patches are and defined as room fill; after cleaning, though, it turned out to be a beatiful plaster cover. F.3301 runs nearly under F.3302 in ist lower part, but seems to stop shortly beforehand and F.3302 is sitting on fill.
EMM continued to expose the layer with a hard orange plaster fragments (U.15380) in Space 449 which is getting more and more interesting. Not only the plaster fragments seem burtn, but also other burnt, dark material can be found in the layer. It might represent collapse from a burtn construction, not necessarily in B.98, but possibly also somewhere else.
XHB documented floor U.15371 and then started to remove it from the south towards north. While doing so, he found yet another floor, apparently made from pale yellow plaster (U.15388) under U.15371 and separated from it by a ca.7cm thick layer of fill. The sequence of floor with quite thick layers of fill in between them in Space 446 seems strange; what processes formed this sequence? A first idea would be that the room was frequently abandoned and re-occupied.
DKK finished the arbitrary room fill layer U.15374 in Space 340, which stull does not contain exciting finds. She then spent some time exposing the face of the walls surrounding the space (F.2413/5055, 2428, 5052, 5054/5053). In only very few patches plaster is preserved on those features. DKK also scraped the southern half of wall F.2413/5055, removing the plaster in this part in order to prepare this part of the wall for micromorphological sampling and building materials study. We were able to see the constructional material of B.98 for the first time in a large area, not just in some patches where the plaster was missing. As already suspected, the brick material of the building contains all kinds of stuff that we would not expect in a wall, including pot sherds, bones, charcoal spots, marl and clay lumps and patches of the red lumpy mortar. No individual bricks are visible, and no mortar lines. Interestingly, the walls and buttresses of B.98 seem much more stable than that of for example Sp.342, although it is less "pure". The cleaned wall F.2413/5055 can also serve as a spot to take the micromorphological sample.
JHB removed the clay lump cluster F.15369 in Space 342, by breaking the pieces and documenting plat impressions in them. He then continued to remove the step left during excavation in 2009 (U.15359).
RHB continued her careful room fill removal (U.15174) in Space 345, still finding more clusters of pot sherds and small finds. |
