| Entry: | Finally excavating again. All that sitting in the office is too much.
In B.107, we continued what we started. CMP drew the wall succession F.3373-3304-2426, with the fill between F.3373 and F.3304 being really clear, but F.3373 itself rather fuzzy towards the room fill. In some places, it convincingly looked like wall, in others not so much – pieces of the heavy clay that was used for mortar, chunks of other stuff – maybe just its façade is a bit fuzzy. Unfortunately we have not even 20cm height of F.3373. We have more of F.3374, the eastern wall, which also looks like a real, clear wall.
JMK continued room fill unit 31114 and defined surrounding wall features better.
DSE continued making both a planum and section through F.2429. We decided to cut back the trench section ca.15cm; this trench section is cutting right through F.2429, so when DSE removes it from the top down, the trench section shows a section through F.2429. That is nice. However, we also want to see the northern limit and façade of the wall, which probably is only a few cm beyond the trench borders – therefore the idea to cut the section back. Tomorrow.
PAB finished his fill unit 31132 behind F.3344. He then moved to open Space 448, which had been dug in 2012 and not touched since – therefore the clearing sandbags and cleaning will take a while. The aim for Space 448 is to get a clearer idea of what this space is – it is different from what we have excavated so far: its walls are plastered, but it has no buttresses. Inside or outside space? Maybe a different kind of building?
In B.98, CLC and ASO resumed working on the floor succession. They are removing the second (lower) floor 18376 (with its sampling unit numbers 31135-31140). CLC noticed something unexpected: a third floor layer 31143, which is only either preserved or present in a medium-sizes patch in NW Space 449, not in the entire building. This little patch managed to mess us up more than we thought – firstly, CLC tried to follow it, see its extend and get a few samples from it. In most areas, 31143 and 18376 come of in chunks together, but in some places she was able to separate them. Also, towards the end of the day we were not quite sure whether 31143 is between 16977 and 18376, or under 18376. A short notice on the unit number use here – every one of these floor layers has one unit number to refer to it as one, for example when talking about stratigraphy or making a Harris Matrix. When they get removed, they receive many additional unit numbers for sampling purposes, which we do not use in a Matrix.
So, the stratigraphy goes as this (top down): room fill – floor 16977 – very thin grey fill 18367 – floor 18376 – (only in some places: very thin fill 31144 – floor 31143) – dark grey fill 18377.
OR, as said, 31143 is between 16977 and 18376, but we have to check that tomorrow.
After working with CLC on the floor, ASO moved over to the western wall of B.98. Last year, we removed some section of this wall, exposing the back of wall F.2425/5050 – 3305 – 3374 of neighbouring B.107. The interwall fill was not excavated last year. It is surprisingly stable after the winter – good on it. ASO is dong a very good job in removing it from the wall so we can see this wall of B.107 in all its glory from both east and west. The fill 31145 peels really nicely of the three different walls and wall materials.
JHB is having more fun in the bin area. He exposed the “mortar” layer 31146 further, which seems to form a quite regular rectangle between the bins 16941 and fill 31131 further north. We do not have any interpretations so far; more to come.
TET finished his room fill layer 31127 in Space 310. After cleaning it so nicely, one could see many large and small fragments of grey mud brick and burned and unburned plaster – and of course the ubiquitous pot sherds and bones.
NMR started working on the plastered surface 16932 in Sp454. This surface has been giving us headaches since years. We decided the best thing was to cut it in half EW and only excavate the southern part to keep a section for checking.
Same thing there, 16932 refers to the entire thing, while we will give individual unit numbers to individual layers. Today, NMR removed the uppermost white layer 31142 with varying thickness. Under it, there is grey fill, but under this might be more plaster layers which we seem to see in the unexcavated part. Tomorrow, NMR will check out the connection where 16932 seems to run up to walls 5058 and buttress 3301, covering supposedly fill to form something that looks a bit like a constructed feature. In this corner of the wall features, there again are more plaster layers, so maybe we will see more while removing. The most important thing is to find out whether or not 16932 is actually directly connected to the wall features. And of course to the famous “transitional” plaster layer 16999.
TSK surprised us with the find of the day, if not the season or entire project, as some people think: A star-shaped bone object with perforation, most probably body ornament, completely preserved and very neatly crafted. He found it inside wall F.2424. JHB immediately said, that makes the object difficult to date, as we also have East Mound sherds in the wall. But I do not want to believe that finding the object in the wall is the result of Chalcolithic excursions to dig up East Mound architectural remains and middens to source building material! I want to believe the object was crafted somewhere on the West Mound, and maybe even put into the wall in purpose.
Besides that, TSK took F.2424 down further towards a level where we will be able to see both the top of a brick and shortly after that all features F.2424, F.5053 and F.3303 on one level –to hopefully finally figure out some building stratigraphy.
TMK started excavating room fill 31141 left in the mini NE-Space in B.105, to bring it down to the same level of the centre of the room and the other little compartments. The layer TMK is digging in now is part of the general, thick erosion package that can be found in the entire building excluding the SE space. He is taking his time to found out more about this layer, which never got enough attention before – first cleaning the looser parts around the larger lumps of brick and plaster, taking a photo, now removing these lumps. One “lump” along F.3310 actually looks a bit like a constructed feature. We will see!
The erosion layer is extremely important for the building biography. Some features, such as F.3346 of APV are standing on it – thus younger. It is not entirely clear which features eroded to form this layer – most walls that are clearly older than the erosion layer look rather fine. The erosion event also clearly separates the midden that was above it from whatever was under it – which we will also hopefully reach this season.
APV finished removing wall F.3346. She found out that this wall is abutting the plaster of both wall F.3352 and buttress F.5062 and that this plaster looks quite eroded. It is not present towards the bottom of both features, a pattern consistent with erosion patters observed by myself and others on modern mud brick features: the bottom is most vulnerable, then the top – the middle part is normally fine. However, the preserved plaster indicates that not so much material was lost in general from the facades of F.3352 and F.5062 – not enough to make the massive erosion layer. Maybe much was lost from the tops of the walls? Also, I think AVP still did not quite reach the preserved facades of those two walls – she is still within F.3346. If F.3346 was built directly against the eroded features, you would expect it to have a very irregular back and be thicker at the bottom – to make up for the thinned bases of F.5062 and F.3352. Well, we will find out. APV will next removed the fill under F.3346 to expose F.3352 behind it and check out whether that walls continues all the way down. |
