| Entry: | Exciting day in Trench 5.
DLG found the plastered face of wall F.3343 (by removing U.16930, probably still disturbed room fill in Space 343). The plaster is medium thick and medium firm and well preserved, but disturbed by a lot of rodent holes. In the northern part, we might have seen the corner with a potential western buttress in the space, but as usual this corner is eaten away by rodents. It takes a lot of time to find and scratch plaster and try to separate the mud brick of the wall from the also brickish looking material of the room fill. Apparently inside wall F.3343, there are fragments of a human skull (U.16931).
BOD is struggling with similar problems down in Space 462, which is the space under Sp.343. The fill she is removing (U.15394) contains so much brick material, marl and lumps of the red lumpy mortar that it is very hard to tell constructions apart from fill. She works on several spots, trying to find the border between buttresses F.3337 and F.3338 and the fill and a possible construction abutting wall F.3305 from the west. The two buttresses now look quite firm, compact and clear seen from the top, but not when approaching them from the sides. We got the feeling that we might already have reached the bases of the buttresses and walls of 462?? We will see.
RHB drew Space 345 and then took all the finds out from the surface. We will close excavation in this space for this year, as other spots are more important to clarify. It is ashame, as the fill is really interesting - but it will wait for us!
JFB finished taking out the bones of burial F.3347. The rest of the skeleton will stay in the trench profile until next year, as undercutting the very crumbly fill the tent is standing on would be too dangerous. JFB then moved over to the probably juvenile burial F.3342, assisted by RHB after she finished in Space 345, before having to attend to yet another skeleton. This cluster of human bones (U.16935) appeared during taking out U.16934. The latter was started to take out the disturbances that truncated the walls F.3341 and F.3345 south of Space 342 and was excavated by our workmen Numand and Errol under the supervision of JFB. The excavation was successful in the way that ca.10cm under the starting level, largers parts of the two walls appeared. We have to scrape and clean more tomorrow to see whether there still are disturbances in the area.
JHB and CMB drew Space 342 and F.3346. Upon detailed observance, we noticed that the fill in the centre of the room differs from that at the edges by consistency (looser) and inclusions (more artefacts, clay lumps, plaster fragments). We interpreted this fill in the centre of the room to be the rest of a lense/layer of room fill on top of a more homogeneous and compact layer of fill that already became visible in the edges of the room. Following this hypothesis, JHB and CMB scraped away the loose lense (U.15360) and really, the more compact fill appeared underneath. Great!
DKK finished her layer of room fill (U.15374) in Space 340, coming up with many more clay balls. Afterwards, a photo was taken and she started to draw the planum.
XHB finished drawing his floors in Space 446 and afterwards spent some time exposing the plaster in the lower part of F.3320, which had not been uncovered last year because the wall is sloping inwards slightly. When he is finished, we will be able to check whether the feature really is sitting on fill.
EMM finished documenting and removing the layer with burnt plaster (U.15380) in space 449 and scraped the rest of the room to the same level (U.15370). Afterwards we saw some differences in inclusions and compactness in different parts of the room, but could not see lenses or layers that represents securely identifiable stratigraphic events, so we decided to take the room down with an arbitrary layer (U.16936).
HLS reached to bottom of her pit F.3331 (U.16928). We noticed the end of the pit when the fill became more compact and had more varied inclusions and was interpreted as Chalcolithic fill (U.16933). Afterwards, when scraping in the eastern part, the lower part of wall F.2427 appeared in plan, so we knew that we really had found the bottom of the pit. The plaster on the wall turned out to be so thick that PFB suspected a floor being connected to it. While scraping, we really found a pale yellow plaster floor (U.16932). This floor is preserved only in few patches so far, but is not yet fully exposed. The pit F.3331 apparently stopped only some centimeters above the floor, leaving a tiny bit of original room fill (U.16933) and maybe cutting into the floor in parts. The floor might even have two layers, in some parts there seems to be a darker orange layer on top of the yellow. This is really exciting. First, the floor (being the bottom of Space 454) would be the second to be found within a space defined by us; in other cases (Sp.343/462), the floors of the upper buildings were cut (intentionally) and not preserved. Second, it coincides perfectly with the tops of the walls surrounding Space 453 under Space 310 and the level of the bit of floor left in the NE corner of 453 on this level (U.18349). And with the level on which F.3301 was cut flat in the eastern part to form a buttress and apparently served as a threshold whose level is the same as floor U.16932. And with the base of the other buttress F.3302. Thirdly, we can expect to have reached the bases of walls F.2427 and 5058 and hopefully to find a older building under Space 454. This older building would be a totally sealed context under floor U.16932. Wonderful! |
