| Entry: | Today, LMS came into the trench for more micromorphological samples. We had a discussion about wall F.2413/5055, which looks more like fill than like wall to the specialists. We discussed the possibility of B.98 consisting of walls and buttresses carved out of eroded fill which was then plastered over, but dismissed this as too crazy. LMS nevertheless took a lot of samples so we could soon know more about the material of B.98.
RHB continued her room fill excavation on Space 345 (U.15174). EMM finished exposing the layer with burnt plaster (15380) as far as she could go without taking out part of it. The layer continues further down, so she documented the present level and will then start to take the top out. With IF who visited the trench, and also with the Templeton seminar later we discussed whether this apparently burnt plaster might represent in situ collapse from an upper storey upon a burning event in B.98. I do not believe that is it in situ collapse, because we would expect other remains of this floor/ceiling/furniture around the plaster fragments, and that is not the case. The fill around the plaster is the usual greyish clayey silt found in all rooms, with pot sherds, bones and stone.
DKK just started to take out another arbitrary layer of room fill (15386) in Space 340 when finding a cluster of large pot sherds, clay balls, fragments of mud brick (15389) which was found first in the passage between Spaces 340 and 450, but spreads further into the room. In a discussion with ER, we noticed that the level in 340 is roughly the same on which the "crazy fill" in Space 450 and 449, that is the fill with much finds and recognisable refuse from building construction and pottery productions also started (when going downwards). And that the top of the "crazy fill" roughly coincides with the base of the bench-like feature 3334. It therefore seems that the building was first filled with refuse full of artefacts to a certain level, then new construction(s) were built and the bullding re-used as a living area, before it was filled again with less exciting fill, containing some building materials, but mostly grey clayey silt with a few sherds and bones. The origian of this upper fill is not entirely clear, it might partially be erosion debris.
Whether or not the bases F.3320, 3335 and 3321 in Space 452 were also built on top of the lower fill (with many artefacts) is not entirely clear, as this room generally contained less artefacts. In the passage from Sapce 450 to 452, this seems to be the case.
XHB continued excavating the floors in Space 446 until he had to leave to sort out his missing luggage in Konya.
BOD finished documenting the plaster accumulation U.15373 and the pottery and bone cluster U.15377 in Space 450. We decided to not continue excavation in this room as to fully understand U.15373 the "bench" F.3334 on top has to be removed first, which will happen next week in a controlled manner. BOD therefore moved to Space 462 cleaning from two years of backfill deposit, to support DLG in his excavation in this space.
DLG continued to follow wall F. 3344, which continues south of burial F.3342, but is heavily disturbed in this part and therefore difficult to excavate.
CMB's area is getting ever more interesting. In our attempt to find wall F.3341, the southern wall of Space 342, and ist parallel wall F.3345, we see more and more fragments of wall (dark brick with yellow mortar lines) in the room fill of Space 342, which is cut by many disturbances. CMB started to take down the area as an arbitrary unit (U.15379), but now goes slower and exposes features such as pits and the mentioned mud brick lumps. She found another burial/skeleton in nearly the same spot as F.3340, but some 20-30cm further down (F.3347).
JFB came out to have a look at the burial and started drawing the construction of F.3342 with DLG.
PTW documented the southern section in the fills of Spaces 310 and 453 and then remove the room fill section which had been left here to follow room fill layers in Sp.454 and is not of much use any more, as most of the fill of Sp.454 is cut by pit F.3331. He then started excavating room fill (U. ) in Space 453.
HSL continues to empty the southern half of pit F.3331 (U.15387), which on the present level has some scattered human bones in it.
It was an exciting day in Space 342, where JHB and I through scratchin were able to finally see the mudbrick constructions in the northwest corner. Wall F.5051 is visible, and south of it a rectangular mudbrick construction, which was hold to be a bench in 2009 and labelled F.3311, but now is visible as a feature jutting out into the room by quite a lot, more like a platform ot buttress. Its new feature number is 3346. What exactly this feature was built for is hard to decide as ss height is not preserved, but cut by a large pit in the western section. JHB cleaned the room to take an overview photo. |
