| Entry: | The second feature I have excavated in the North area is a late burial (F3631), probably Byzantine. I found some metal nails (two of them in situ (X1 and X2) and some fragments in the dry sieve), which supports the idea that this is Byzantine, as the nail may have been from a wooden coffin. The infill (unit 19443) consisted of two materials, a bricky material and a looser brown material. The bricky material was found on top of the skeleton (unit 19453) as well as between the legs. Perhaps this were bricks placed on top of the coffin? The looser material was found both around the edges, and probably is the soil that filled the grave, once the coffin was placed there. In places the brown loose material was lying below the brick material. This means the bricks were placed in the burial last.
A large disturbance was visible on the top of the infill. An animal had borrowed in much of the western part of the infill.
The skeleton was in a fragile state, but much of it could be recorded in situ. The position of the body is clear, a supine, extended position with the arms extended along the body. The bones were very fragile and I had help from Josh from the Human bone lab to lift it.
The insteresting thing about the body was the missing head. Everything else was there, or at least some traces, but there were not a single fragment of the scull. Also the upper vertebrae are missing (according the the human bone people). But, some teeth were found, one near the ribs (see plan 12/315) and a few others in the dry sieve. One explanation could be that the head was dug up by someone when the scull was still in good condition, which may have been relatively early, but not directly after the burial, as the teeth must have been loose. Also a brick material at the head end of the grave shows a cut. Perhaps someone has dug down in this area knowing this was a place to find a scull. The soil may have been looser here as a result of this removal, and more attractive to animals to borrow in, which was the case here.
There are no finds that immediately may be interpreted as grave goods. Especially as the burials nearby have that. However, there was an interesting group of stones, clay ball fragments, bits of burnt clay and a pottery sherd, near the left lower leg, placed together just by the edge. One of the stones looks worked. Just 10 to 20 cm to the west was another worked stone, on the floor of the burial. I get the impression these were placed in the burial, they were not a random part of the fill. In other words, they were some sort of grav goods! But they may have been placed outside of the coffin, as they were very close to the edge.
I made the group of stones, burnt clay etc to an X find, but appearently it is not possible to X find group of finds, so I had to give all the individual components a different Xfind number, with the same coordinates, so hopefulle everyone understand that they were found together. In the future I will categorize finds like this as a cluster.. I did not now, as I thought it was better if they belonged to the infill unit as finds. Thinking about it now, it would be better if they did not, as they were probably placed in the grave before the infill.
In the SW corner, I found some bone fragments stuck into the bottom and side of the burial. First I thought this was a part of the missing scull, but it turned out to be a horn core. It probably belongs to something below the burial, and the Byzantine people may have cut into it just a little as the were digging this grave. I have left it in there to be lifted when the relevant layer is excavated.
One note on the numbering of the space. The area was numbered in connection with the surface scrape in 1993, and we are using these numbers, as only very limited excavation has happened in this area since then. But it is a bit difficult to know excactly where we are in relation to the spaces defined at the scrape. First, we thought this burial was in space 95, but Burcu looked closer and we have now understod this burial is in both space 96 and 99. However, the scanned daily sketches of 04/07/12 and 07/07/12 are marked with space 95. (Even though the searchable information in the databas is entered with nos 96 and 99.) And this is the reason why. |
