| Entry: | JHB and CMB continue to excavate lenses of room fill in Space 342, which are distinguishable from each other by certain characteristics such as number and size of sherds, colours and inclusions (U.16958, U.16959). It seems that these lenses are lying on top of a massive layer of brickish/plasterish material that spreads over the whole room and that is sloping downwards towards the centre of the room. This is interesting and might indicate that material was thrown into the room from the edges of the building, maybe from the tops of surrounding houses.
DKK did a great job exposing the upper part of the ash layer U.16951 in Space 340 today. It is now clear that the ash spread over the whole room, forming a nearly uninterrupted layer, which does not have the same thickness in the whole room and becomes patchy in the passage towards Sp.450, where BOD also found some remains of ash in the north western part on this level. Besides of the ash, stones of different sizes, some pot sherds, clay balls, plaster fragments, clay lumps and the two large sheep long bones are visible in the room now. Some of these finds are lying on the ash and some seem to have come to the room beforehand and were covered or a least surrounded by the ash. So far, not artefacts were identified that must have come into the room at the same time as the ash and are completely surrounded by it. When thinking about activities that produced such a pattern, the amount of ash seems to large to have fit into one bucket or basket or other container Chalcolithic people might have used to transport their refuse to the disposal area. Also, how did it happen that nearly the whole room is evenly covered? Either the ash was spread in that way, or the area was open to external forces such as wind, rain or walking animals or humans for a while, which might have spread the ash.
EMM continued following the (trampelled?) surface U.16947 into Space 450 when finding another cluster of clay balls (F.16961), ca.20-30 balls so far, in the passage between the two rooms. I start to find it suspicious that clay balls accumulated or were deposited in the passages between two spaces. Maybe there is any meaning to this?
PTW took out the fill under bench F.3334 (U.16929), which did not produce any surprising items. He is now exposing the plaster lump or plaster construction U.15373.
The plaster on F.3335 seems quite well preserved, especially on the corner facing Sp.452. However, the eastern face of buttress F.5052 has nearly no plaster. It might have been deliberately removed or had already fallen off before F.3334 was put against the buttress. F.5052 is leaning towards east quite recognisably, but its western and eastern faces are otherwise perfectly even – strange. The base of F.3335 is below the base of F.3334, in fact we have not yet reached its base. The base of F.3320, though, abutting F.3335 from the north, is much higher than that of F.3335 and on roughly same level with the base of F.3334. The stepped base of F.3334 raises doubts, though, as to whether base levels are a proper means to sort out the sequence of construction events in the north eastern part of Building 98. The fact that F.5052 was apparently still mostly intact at the point in time when F.3334, 3335 and 3320 were built next to it, including the plaster on its southern and eastern face indicates that Building 98 cannot have been left abandoned and open to decay for a long time in between then end of its use as a living area and the construction of these new features (F.3334, 3335, 3321, 3320). Research on the collapse of mud brick houses (Asikli Höyük, Qatna in Syria) shows that the wood and reed roofs of these houses rot quite quickly, and once the roof is gone and the rain enters the building, the walls first erode and then collapse within years. Of course, one must consider that the excavated part of B.98 might have been a lower storey and that the building might have been shielded, protected and stabilised by the surrounding buildings. These factors prolong the collapsing process. Nevertheless, the period when B.98 was first left unoccupied and filled with refuse must have lasted rather some years than some decades. Last week, ER pointed out that Space 452 so far seems to contain less of the fill with high concentration of artefacts and different building and production materials than Sp.340 and Sp.449 do. This might indicate that the people disposing off their refuse in the building entered it from the north eastern corner?? That the disposed refuse did not come in horizontal layers, but in heaps and lenses is suggested by the contexts excavated in Space 449 in particular and by the fact that the base of F.3334 was stepped. It is still weird that the builders took there time to flatten out the fill to put F.3334 on top (it base after removed looked very even), but did not make it as flat as to produce an even surface for the whole of its base. This might also indicate that the walking level in B.98 was not even (compared to sea level) in its second phase of occupation.
DLG continued to take out room fill in Space 343/462 (U.16949) in order to define wall features in the southwest corner of these spaces. As expected, the supposed wall F.3348, which would have represented the western wall of Space 462, turned out to be not a wall, but brickish room fill. We abandoned the feature number. Instead of a wall, DLG exposed more of the extremely fine and homogeneous fill under wall F.3344 (looks like garden soil that you can buy for your flowers, greyish, silty, no finds or inclusions). This fill looks prepared – any inclusions that would naturally be in eroded settlement debris or any natural soil layer must have been removed, at least from the visible part. What this fill is standing on is still unclear. I hope we will find the western wall of Space 462 further down. Then we would have the wall of the younger building Sp.343 (F.3344) being put on top of fill on top of the older wall, while the eastern walls of the space (F.2426, F.2425/5050 and F.5074) sit directly on top of the wall surrounding the older building Space 462 (F.3307, F.3308, F.3309). They might have lifted the western part of the younger building because the surrounding buildings had already moved upwards? Or the situation is completely different. Maybe Space 462 was much larger than 343 and F.3344 was put on fill that was put on room fill in the centre of 462.
We keep discussing collapse vs. deliberate backfill for the fill of 343/462. I have never excavated mud brick debris before, but I have seen collapsing buildings and would expect collapse layers to be more massive, look either eroded or consisting of whole walls fallen down. Single brick lumps with smaller lumps of mortar in between and sherds and bones and some other finds look to me more like disposed fill that contains the debris from a building that collapsed or was dismantled and that does not have to be anywhere near Space 343/462. Also, we have this potential collapse on quite different heights within the rooms, with area of less brickish material and larger sherds in between.
HLS finished exposing the plaster surface U.16932 in Space 454, as far as it is accessible in the pit cut. We took off the ca.15cm wide package of original room fill that the pit left in from of wall F.5058 (U.16960), because the plaster continued under it. After seeing the plaster surface (nearly) completely, it did not seem any clearer. In the centre of the room, it is roughly flat, with bumps and several layers that are partially cut and create and uneven surface. There also is an orange-black line/layer in it. In the western part of the room, the plaster turns upwards to cover a feature abutting F.5058 from the east that was not visible so far and looks bench-like, without wanting to really use this word. Finally, it connect to the plaster of F.5058. The removed room fill was a really small unit, but full of sherds and animal bones. That makes it even more regrettable that the fill of Sp.454 was nearly completely cut away by the pit F.3331.
JFB exposed the brick lining of burial F.3343 today and started taking out its fill. The fill is compact dark in the centre and there are squarish parts with looser fill and red spots on both ends. Very strange. The fill in the centre looks more like Chalcolithic mud brick. But maybe we just have to go further down to come to the skeleton?
Our workman Errol and I took off the uppermost layer of room fill in Space 342 (U.16962). This has two objectives: Remove the uppermost, probably still disturbed layer of room fill to come down to the first undisturbed layer, which is visible in section and marked by its many pale yellow clay/marl lumps. And secondly to further expose the southern wall F.3341 and its corner with F.2424. This wall is still behaving strange. Its southern face is intact, parallel to wall F.3345. Its northern face, though, where it faced Space 342, is cut away. The fill in the cut is not visibly distinguishable from the rest of the room fill and very compact; that is why I believe it was cut in the Chalcolithic already. |
