| Entry: | OK time for a diary entry now that the chaos of the last week or two is beginning to subside. Things are underway in the South and we have finally built up a head of steam.
Several meetings later and we have a clear understanding of Ian’s medium and long term aims for the project. For my part in the South we have to attack the C14 spine in earnest (Arek, Onur and Christina will be leading the charge here, assisted by Malvina and Andrew from Posnan).
Agata is half sectioning B.96, assisted by Veronica (Posnan), and Rebecca (assisted by Matteo - also Posnan) is addressing the B.80 problem and will probably find herself working closely with Ash on the conservation of the east and possibly north walls. The idea is that she and Matteo reduce the badly leaning and shored B.80 north wall and try to make it safe so that we can investigate the presence or otherwise of further paintings on these walls. Further during the excavations of these walls Rebecca will be looking for evidence of clear stratigraphic relationships between B.80, B.79 and the little space to the north east of this structural nexus.
In the medium term there is a focus upon the clearance of buildings below the Mellaart section on the western edge of Roddy’s sequence, in order to go for a much larger exposure of the lower levels in the coming years - but this will require a considerable amount of sack movement from the workmen in the coming weeks.
The main point that I wanted to highlight in this particular entry is my thoughts on the C14 spine problem highlight by recent email ad personal conversations in the weeks before site began between Ian, Shahina, Alex Bayliss and myself, and culminating in a detailed chat with Ian on-site this morning.
The remainder of this entry presents my notes on the subject which can be found on my uploaded daily sketch for today (written before my conversation with Ian this morning) . As well as a few concluding comments summarising the chat we had today). So here goes:-
Specifically with regard to the 'possible Shrine 8 Annex sequence' (apparently labelled Sp.470 by Roddy at end of 2011), the following statements are what we can deduce stratigraphically as things stand:
1 - Mellaart appeared to truncate 2 structure as part of the 'possible Shrine 8 Annex sequence', which form a sequential stratigraphic strand from L.VIII->L.VI.
2 - The abandonment of Sp.474 marks the beginning of a midden sequence that directly links stratigraphicall w. the 'Little Britain' sequence - This is a crucial link in the C14 'spine as I understand it!
3 - Related to this last point - the same midden sequence post-dates the south wall of the L.VI 'possible Shrine 8 Annex sequence', and ?!MAY!? be associated with its destruction - but to prove this I would need to see what seals the top of this south wall in 2011 (still need to check the plans at time of writing!)
4 - The L.VII 'Shrine 8 Annex south wall appears to be linked by a 'primary' - or at least 'different' between-wall fill which would appear to be packing.
This would suggest that they must have functioned contemporaneously @ some point, pushing the construction date for Sp.474 to L.VII or below.
CONCLUSION: Therefore we can say that the TAQ for the construction of Sp.474 lies before or during L.VII and the TPQ on its disuse is in L.VI.
IN ORDER TO REFINE THIS CONCLUSION: To explore the connection between Sp.474/'Little Britain' and the 'Shrine 8 Annex sequence', we would need to dig both spaces and try to establish whether there is a stratigraphic relation between Sp.474 and the 'Shrine 8 Annex sequence', either @ L.VIII or L.VII.
HOWEVER, Ian makes some very good points - and they must impact the way we tackle this.
Firstly, there is no guarantee that anything but an abuttal will occur between the 'Shrine 8 Annex', at whichever level and Sp.474 - in which case we do not have a firm stratigraphic link - although I would counter this by saying that if we don't dig it we'll never know.
Secondly AND THIS IS FAR MORE CRITICAL - all of this rests on the assumption that Sp.470 is actually an annex to the L.VIII Shrine 8 building identified by Mellaart - and frankly after some discussion with Ian I am very much inclined to agree that we haven't proven this yet - thus making the whole discussion academic.
- And so Arek and I will be concentrating in the next few days on cleaning up Sp.470, and trying to examine the double northern walls above the deep sounding to establish whether there is a nich or, better still - crawl hole that can connect the structures. We have agreed to talk when we have a clearer idea of what is going on.
I will upload my composite (and somewhat stylised sketch) and written notes on all this to the daily sketch archive for reference should anyone be inclined to read and comment on this in the new spirit of reflexive engagement with the interpretative process :-)
For further information you might also consider Areks diary and daily sketch entries.
So watch this space I guess for now! |
