| Entry: | Carrying on with U 15394 in sp 462
I am now almost sure that the buttresses do not continue in more than 5-10cm depth. The plaster and mudbrick does not extend in depth. Instead, I have been finding a series of large ceramic sherds (almost complete vessels) all lying under the level of the buttresses. Whatever happened in that space, it produced a strange room fill of well-preserved pottery amongst really hard mortar patches.
It is possible that the buttresses were built on top of the room fill. That would imply that the large areas of mud brick and mortar fill were used to prepare the area for construction. BUT first, the mortar looks identical with the mortar from the upper construction phase (red and lumpy) – so it's much more likely a collapse than a preparation of construction. And second, because the level at the base of the buttresses was left under sand bags for 2 years, it has so far been impossible to detect a separation between the room fill under the buttresses and the layer contemporaneous with the buttresses. Then again, there are some artefacts (like the ground stone I found today) that lie in the middle – so maybe there aren't two separate layers... |
