| Entry: | In preparation of the removal of Buildings 106 and 107, PTW and KTX continued cleaning them from backfill remains. We also decided to record them with 3D photography tomorrow before starting to take out walls. It is ideal that we can record the buildings one by one and then put them together in the computer later. B.105 is not yet cleaned from backfill, but we want to start working in 106 and 107 – so we can just 3D record every building when it is cleaned, and then put the trench together in the software.
B.106 survived the winter quite well, B.107 looks very rough, and Space 462 under it also starts to look not that fresh any more. PTW spent a lot of time brushing and scraping walls and sections so they will be visible in the photos. I really look forward to having B.107 gone – it hurts to see it crumble and crumble and crumble. It does have nicely defined bricks and mortar lines, though, so we can have fun taking out brick by brick and recording building techniques.
There is a block of room fill left in the NW corner of B.107/ Space 462; this fill was not removed last year because a late burial in the area consumed a lot of time. While cleaning the sections of this block, PTW uncovered something that looks like bricks with mortar lines and would be in the perfect place for the never found western buttress of B.107 and has same building material as the other features of the building – way UNDER the defined base of the western wall F.3344, though, thus slightly strange. We will see.
After KTX finished cleaning B.106, the modern disturbances around it became clearer. A last bit of fill of the massive late pit F.3331 was still left where this pit cut F.3351 and 2427 and the walls under them. KTX removed this fill (16986) finding the usual tile and large white stones that Byzantine people seem to have loved, and some more stray human bones. It is easy to follow the pit cut against the dark grey walls of Space 454; the walls of the older Space 461 under this, however, are reddish brown, and this is not so easy. We probably removed all of the never-ending pit fill now; but this has to be verified when going down between the walls of Space 461. I started scraping around a small pit cutting into F.2427 marked by a large stone. Once we have these late disturbances out, we could start removing the walls.
When looking at the building (B.106), it again became clear that the interfaces between the younger and older walls are not at all on the same level. When imagining a floor or walking surface (which never was found) matching this interface, B.106 on top would have had a concave floor level that was deeper in the centre between buttresses F.3301 and 3302 and considerably higher in the northern and southern end of the building. This is not likely. Instead, either a possible walking surface might have been on the level of the threshold between the two buttresses, or roughly on this level, and then people living in B.106 would have been surrounded by walls whose lower parts were made up by the older walls (F.3312, F.3313, F.3314 around Space 453 and F.3358, F.3359, F.3357 and F.3362 around Space 461) and younger walls F.2408, F.2427 and F.5058. Alternatively, the walking level was somewhat higher, matching the interfaces between the walls maybe, then the bases of the two buttresses would have been under the floor level. Either way, one wonders as to the reasons for building a building like that.
I scraped around the walls of B.98 again, which is mostly frustrating, because finding their facades is complicated as usual. In several places we seem to have multiple quite thick plaster layers. As usual, the important parts, that is the meeting points of wall plaster and floor plaster, or the plaster in the corners between walls, is eaten away by the rodents whose diet seems to be bases to a large part on marl and lime. So far we have no indication to believe that the floor 16977 is not running up against all walls and buttresses, but this remains to be verified.
EUR continued removing carefully his crazy room fill layer 16980 that provides us with large amounts of all usual finds, and some nice ground stones in addition. Towards the end of the day, he started removing unfired pottery in the NW corner of the Space (Sp.341), which turned out to be a dense cluster of several sherds, which therefore received its own unit number 16989 as it probably can be traced back to a distinct depositional event in the past. What lead a potter to smash and discard a seemingly good pot, after forming and painting it, remains unclear.
JHB continued exposing finds lying directly on floor U.16977, defining, recording another cluster U.16985 in the doorway between Space 340 and Sp.450. The fill above floor is now split up into the following numbers: 16976 was used for fill above floor in Space 449, 452 and eastern Space 450 up to where cluster 16981 started. The soil around the cluster was recorded as 16982. In northern Space 450, a very homogeneous layer of fine orange sand 16984 was recorded on top of the floor, under the mixed fill. In several places the uppermost millimetres of the floor where grey instead of yellowish white, this grey (16978) probably representing floor trample. When moving into Spaces 340 and 341, we will artificially separate the fills above floor in those rooms so to later be able to say where artefacts came from. |
