| Entry: | PTW, JHB and I have been working in the trench since Saturday 27th July. The workmen cleared the sandbags, we scraped the winter damage off the walls and cut back the sections. In this course, JHB also removed the remaining parts (skull and a few displaced ribs and sternum) of burial F.3340, most of which had been dug in 2011, but whose head had been outside the trench border until we cut back the western section this year.
During the last two days, we have been removing artificial steps in the room fill in B105 and B107 which had been left from last year, when excavation focussed on certain areas towards the end of the season. The aim of removing these steps was to first facilitate moving around the buildings and to remove potential health and safety hazards. Further to prepare the wall removal planned for this season.
In B105, last year the centre of the trench had been dug down while the fill in the mini-side-rooms remained on a higher level. PTW removed fill (18399) in the small area between F3346, F3111 and F3365 (NW corner of B105). I excavated fill (18396) left in the SW corner between F3346, F3368 and F3365, however leaving the part just before F3368 as a step to get out of the building. Both units consisted nearly entirely of building materials, with a few artefacts between: disintegrated dark brick, but also pieces with rows of dark brick and white mortar still in place, apparently fragments of wall; plaster fragments burnt red and black; fresh plaster (marl), some pieces painted red; clumps of marl, and clumps of a hard white material yet unknown to us. Resembles fill dug in the centre of the room last year and might represent (our first!) layer of in situ wall debris and erosion remains. I then moved on to the area between F3366 and F3353 (fill 31100) where the fill was entirely different – loose, nearly powdery, red-orange. Also with many fragments of plaster burnt red and black, and a few clumpy of marl and that other white stuff, but no brick material – so different. All three units contained several large pieces of charcoal, which were taken as samples.
Removing this fill close to the confirmed a suspicion we had last year – we can see bases of F3311, F5062, F3346. It is not entirely clear with F.3365. the other two buttresses F3366 and F3353 definitely continue further down, which is surprising given that they seem to be part of one general construction phase with the inner walls. Walls F3368, F3310 and F3303 are not yet exposed enough to tell – we will know next week. These observations do not make the phasing of the building any less complicated, but seem to confirm that the inner walls might indeed be later than the outer ring, as suspected last year, mainly because F3365 is clearly abutting F3363. The construction of the older (inner) walls was preceded by a phase of erosion and collapse, which is clearly evidenced by the fact that these walls stand on top of the same fill we excavated with units 18396 and 18399 – you can see pieces of wall and brick in the fill directly under the wall bases. We will know more about phasing once we start removing walls.
JHB excavated fill left on either side of buttress F3356/3355 in B105 (18397 north of the buttress, 18398 south of it). Within 18398, he found a cluster of several smashed unfired pots (31101). |
