| Entry: | We have almost eradicated a building so far (B.128) or rather we are excavating what is below it. Since last entry (too long ago!) we have been occupied with walls and infills, mainly walls. Excavating Catal-walls is something I am not especially familiar with, and it is quite a confusing experience, just as it should be. Some days ago we documented F3656, the western wall of B128. It was very eroded in the first four brick and mortar courses, really only the fifth was in good shape. Underneath we found three large bricks (with mortar), U21348, clearly foundation bricks, and a foundation cut that was extended also for the southern wall - F3660, which had similar foundation bricks. It was apparent these bricks were of different origin, probably reused from other walls. Now as we are excavating a wall collapse, it seems that they probably come from another time but perhaps the same place (i.e. walls in a nearby location, probably the same space). For the western wall the foundation cut did not go along the whole wall - in its northern part we could see that the wall was founded on an older wall. Also the foundation brick course might have another course (we will see..). In the wall collapse (U21180), we see sandy bricks (like one of the foundation bricks for the southern wall F3660) and clayey bricks, we see vertical plaster and sloping plaster, intermixed mortar and disturbing animal burrows (today we encountered a very much alive centipede!). This messy rubble, to where bricks were shoved horisontally it seems, was cut for the new walls and some of the collapsed walls' bricks were chosen to found a new building. It is an interesting use and reuse (and/or construction/destruction) process that we see, which kind of change the way I look at walls in general. Walls are not only the presence of a building, but also the representation of borders, of old and new, of function and organization, of labor, hard work and of decisions and problemsolving - conceptually not very dissimilar to the excavation and documenting of them. |
