| Entry: | Over the last three and a half days I have been excavating the ‘island’ of archaeology let by Mellaart in the south-east corner of his shrine 8 level VIII - building 16 space 164 in new money. There was basically a complete sequence for this corner between infilling (4300) - level VII to level VIII - and infilling (4355) - level VIII to level IX. It is basically a ‘dirty’ oven area. The first thing constructed was probably an internal east-west wall F.435 - (4346)/(4347) which acted as the northern boundary for this area. It appears to have existed throughout the life-span of the building and been quite a pronounced feature to begin with although it became less so as deposits accumulated to the south. The first F.I was oven F.438, this is probably a rectangular/sub-oval north-south aligned domed oven with at least four phases indicated by rubefied floors - (4353)/(4349)/(4314)/(4313). The final phase has two apparently in-situ clay balls 4312 X.1 and X.2 suggesting that these objects were used in ovens in some way. This F.I. was then replaced by oven F.439 lying slightly to the west which was not excavated and is only visible in section. It only appears to have one base and is delimited by a pair of raised plaster edges. All in all it seems to be rather atypical but it is difficult to be sure as it was not excavated. Next came F.I. 435 which lies directly over F.438. It seems to be very similar to F.438 in size/form and has three rubefied bases (4310)/(4308)/(4306). Lying to the north of the F.I.’s were a series of dirty floors/trample layers/oven rake-outs -(4344)/(4342)/(4318)/(4316)/(4304) which could be associated with the F.I.’s. There were also a couple of clean plaster floors (4343)/(4319), (4319) was particularly interesting as it seems to be associated with a red deer antler tine X.2 and a clay ball X.1. The dirty floors etc. were associated with a couple of obsidian clusters (4305)/(4317) which confirms the general pattern of associations between ovens and obsidian caches. I am not sure that there is a direct association between obsidian caches and oven areas, I think it is more likely that they are both linked via some more nebulous X factor, i.e. an approved social idea of spatial organisation, which leads to this physical manifestation. The final event in the sequence is a post retrieval pit [4303]/(4302).
All in all what I have dug corresponds quite well with Mellaart’s published plan although he missed the post, didn’t realise that F.435 and F.438 were separate and was a bit naughty in pretending that he had dug all the way to the south wall.
Whilst I have been doing this Jez, Richard and more recently Nurcan have been drawing wall elevations which preserve a large amount of important information despite the near total excavation of the area. We still have some drawing to do, then we have to strip the wall plaster and do a bit more drawing of newly revealed details. After that everything will have to be numbered/described and an overall matrix done. Very time consuming, slightly tedious when you want to get on digging but absolutely vital to the overall picture.
Digging Mellaart’s island has been an interesting experience. Obviously as 95% of the building is gone it is of limited value, nevertheless it gives us important insights into a building that he labelled a ‘shrine’. Also having effectively dug a ‘complete’ sequence through a building in such a short time I think that I understand it a great deal better than is normally possible. Normally this process would probably take a minimum of several weeks, or in previous seasons several months. It would be constantly necessary to go away and dig other areas and as a result the area would dry out, be walked over etc. and you would forget minor but important details. By digging a small area much more quickly I am much more confident about relationships, i.e. which layers outside go with which fire installations and in some instances I would almost be confident in assigning individual layers to individual bases within a particular fire installation. These relationships are obviously crucial but I am not sure that it is possible to make them within buildings 1 and 2 for instance simply because of the way that these were dug.Entered By: Craig Cessford |
