| Entry: | The aim at the start of the season, once the original area of excavation was changed, was to finish space 117, building 2 and excavate as much of space 115 so as to release wall 406 to excavate that and make building 7 (shrine 8) safe to work in. Wall 406 runs half way along the south of space 115 and forms a rebuild to the south west corner of space 117, pre dating oven 268. It therefore must be a late level IX wall but the need for it isn’t clear and wont be clear until we remove the whole of it and the walls of building 2. The deposits in space 115 are now very similar to the infill of building 2 and of course this makes sense as whatever building lies below space 115 must have been abandoned at the same time, we are still in Mellaart level VIII in space 115 and Mellaart level IX in building 2. Space 115 has now been left mid excavation on a fairly reliable horizon, still tipping from east too west.
The walls to Building 2 still stand, the plaster has been removed from the wall faces (apart from the central area of the north wall as it looks as if any pressure on the wall face will bring the whole tumbling down). Kent has been exposing and conserving the small area of painting on the north section of the east wall, he fears he’ll not be able to successfully lift the painting because of the way the plaster breaks up. Pete says there may be paint to the east of the north wall too so that’s to be investigated next. Once that’s done and the denuded wall elevations drawn we’ll have to sand bag the north wall, so we can take the south wall down in order to make building 6 (shrine 10) safe to work in. Unfortunately we wont be allowed to take the rest of building 2 down, we could leave it to collapse but that would be irresponsible, and if we don’t support the north wall the whole building will come tumbling down as soon as the south wall is removed. We’ve not done anything in space 116.
Wall 299, the north wall of building 8 (shrine 1) level VII was excavated and though heavily eroded was demonstrated to be bonded to the east wall 414. This then proves that level VII shrines 1 and 8 were constructed at the same time. Wall 414 was overlain by wall 76 which must then have been level VI or VIB. I’m at the moment excavating the west wall of shrine 1 and to look at it looks like one construction but there must be more that one construction, I’ll have to check how wall 299 related to that.
The west wall 415 is bonded to the south (which is called the same number), this is but a small stretch as it’s mostly obscured by our sandbag steps into the area. This south stretch of wall was overlain by wall 413 which was cut into wall 415 in the corner and the later 413 overhung 415 creating an overhang and plastered. In order to reduce wall 415 to a safe height to work in building 8 (shrine 1) walls to Mellaart level VII houses 5 (space 169)and 6 (space 168) are also in the process of excavation and it is in space 168 that burial 417 was found.
Building 6 is almost free of Mellaart remnants, as usual it has been difficult to work out what is archaeology because of weathering and compaction. It also appears to be discrepancies in what we’re finding and what Mellaart said he found in that his level VII photographs don’t match his level VII plan and neither seem to fit what we’ve found. There’s been a series of basins/bins, remodelled post scars along the north wall overlying a complex of ovens in the northeast corner. Fire installations were aslo found towards the south of the area, a shallow raised platform 428 in the SW corner that cut a feature of fragmented clay balls in a clay matrix forming a roughly circular base similar to feature 96 that was excavated in space 112 but whereas that one was used as a firing platform there is no sign of burning to this one. An obsidian cache 4280 is under excavation at the moment which at present appears to be in the fill of the building, and a collection of 3 rough cut obsidian fragments were found in layer 427***.
Building 7 is sinking fast. Visible at the moment are level VIII walls and an island of level VIII stratigraphy to the southeast, mostly oven related deposits and truncated ovens. The floor horizons are clearly visible in sections overlying level IX infill and level IX walls are also visible. In the northeast corner is a partially truncated ‘bin’ which looks as if belongs to level IX too and along the north section is an island of level IX infill. Clearly then the deep sounding isn’t against the north or south walls, in fact it probably is where the east and west walls have caved in the middle of the building. We reckon at least another meter of infill but we’re stopping to record sections, excavate the stratigraphy whilst we can still reach.
Whilst the recording of building 7 is going on we’ll begin to empty building 8 (shrine 1) but not too deep as we need access and egress to building 7 whilst there’s still a lot of fill to remove. There’s so much juggling to do, there’s no easy way to access deep excavation areas and there’s no easy way to do these things safely when we’re not allowed to remove overhanging walls!Entered By: Shahina Farid |
