| Entry: | Spent day knocking down wall and doing paperwork when what I really want to do is start digging level X building 18.
Shahina produced a section of the deep sounding with heights. Its source is unknown but presumably comes from Mellaart himself or possibly someone else such as Ian Todd.
Level VII floors - 1005.87
Level VIII floors - 1004.94
Level IX floors - 1004.12
Level X floors - 1003.1
Humus on sterile clay - 1002.42
‘Aceramic level 1’ - 1001.83
‘Aceramic level 2’ - 1001.32
‘Aceramic level 3’ - 1001.18
‘Aceramic level 4’ - 1000.62
‘Aceramic level 5’ - 1000.4
‘Aceramic level 7’ - 1000.0
‘Aceramic level 8’ - 999.8
‘Aceramic level 9’ - 999.55
‘Aceramic level 10’ - 999.1
‘Aceramic level 11’ - 998.6
‘Aceramic level 12’ - 998.0
At the moment I would roughly put our levels as;
Level VIII (rough estimate of possible range) - 1004.9 to 1005.7
Level IX - 1004.0 to 1004.6 (1004.45 to 1006 near deep sounding)
Level X - 1003.15 to 1003.25
Our level X ties in well as does the lower end of the range for level IX. At a guess the levels were taken on the south side of the deep sounding.
Earlier work showed that Mellaarts levels were accurate to within a few tens of centimetres and that most of the variation was probably differences in floor heights within a building (On The Surface p.276-78). We therefore have the level X deposits to dig followed by the humus on sterile clay band then just under four metres of ‘Aceramic Levels’. These layers aren’t aceramic as Mellaart himself realised in 1965 but quite what they are is unclear. They are not nearly as thick as the later building phases and his description makes them sound almost like something half way between midden deposits and internal building deposits. I’m sure it will all become clearer over the next four months.Entered By: Craig Cessford |
