| Entry: | Shahina 7th June
Too much has happened since I last wrote a diary, too much to recap on so I’m just going to jot down a few things. I can only cover the archaeology in general terms as I’m not often found with a trowel in my hand on site and I’ve not had much time to familiarise myself with unit numbers etc either.
I feel that after a really good start we’ve slowed right down on site, I think this is mostly due to the fact that we’ve had to do so much extra work on the periphery of the excavation area for safety reasons and also most people have been on well deserved holidays recently. For those of us on site the area doesn’t look much different, but it is encouraging when people come up and notice a change.
9th June
I suppose the really eventful thing since I last wrote was defining and partially excavating the deep sounding in building 18 (Mellaart's shrine 8 level X ) It is irregular in shape probably due to collapse he talked about in his 1965 report and we expect the sides to straighten up as we dig down. At level X, where the sounding was dug from he left unexcavated areas to the north and south which Craig has been excavating, so see his diary entries. In the deep sounding section the sequence below level X does follow what Mellaart recorded, there is a thick homogenous layer of ‘infill’ type material which Craig thinks might be what he called level XI in his contribution to the 50 years BIAA volume. Then there is a band of multiple fine layering of organic rich deposits which we think he calls a ‘humic’ layer, Wendy has looked at these and thinks they are ‘stabling’ deposits, certainly all the right signatures are there but what puzzles all of us is the very fine and very even banding but Wendy showed me tiny aggregates and ‘crusts’ which may be caused by wind and rain, anyway she’s working on this exciting stuff (no I’m not being sarcastic!) then to the south there is a band of clay which we think Mellaart called a ‘flooding’ event, we in the field think it looks like alluvium but it’s a bit too dry for Wendy to have a proper look so she’ll wait until we get back to a fresh face. Under the clayey layer are deposits which we think Mellaart referred to as ‘midden’, although it has the characteristics of midden it looks massive without the fine interdigitated lenses that we dug in space 115. He says he had at least 10 successive plaster floors of courtyards but no more superimposed buildings (book pg 55) but in the 50 years BIAA volume he says he found and left unexcavated burials and ovens? The interesting thing is that we know he got to level XII in houses 29 and 31, so are we on the edge of the settlement pre level X under building 18? Or as Wendy says is this a terracing event? Lastly there is a cut visible against the west face of level X wall to shrine X antechamber which implies that building was cut into the deposits below the ‘flooding’ deposits.
Because we’ve been using the neighbouring building 8 (shrine 1) as a main access route to building 7 we’ve not exposed the archaeology across the whole area yet. To the north Jez excavated the infill of an E-W aligned narrow room at level X , just enough to define the walls, we wont be excavating down to floors as it’s a convenient place to step in. Of interest is the fact that at level X (and also level IX) the wall between buildings 18 and 8 is a party wall not double walls, Mellaart does talk about this change from double to single walls in the early levels in houses 29 and 31. Also the party wall at level X includes a plastered opening between the two buildings so they must have been the same building which Mellaart doesn’t mention. This makes a very large construction, certainly at level IX it appears that the two buildings were constructed at the same time by the appearance of the brick and mortar material but whereas in building 16 the mortar is predominantly one colour, in the other building it’s another colour which interdigitate at the location of the party wall. What it all means I don’t know, could it represent individual access to mortar sources? but some form of collaboration in terms of construction? Hmmm. This does suggest the same construction phase however.
Level VIII is the last phase where we there are double walls between buildings 21 and 7 (shrines 1 and 8) both level IX buildings 22 and 16 (shrines 1 and 8) and level X buildings 23 and 18 (shrines 1 and 8) have party walls (that’s a single wall) and whereas in Level X the two building are definitely linked (maybe it should have been given a single building number but for convenience at this stage they have been individually numbered, it may change later on) where the walls 482 and 507 are bonded to form a narrow space 179 in building 23, wall 507 is actually the northern bit of the party wall between the two buildings 23 and 18 (sorry if that’s totally incomprehensible).
At level IX Jez excavated wall 447 to the south which I think illustrated a great sequence. In the past we’ve never been able to establish the sequence of events in terms of dismantling a building and construction of the later building. Back in 1997 when working in space 109 I suggested that possibly the infill was put in before the new walls went up because there was a skim of infill material just lipping at the interface of the earlier and later walls, and that this sequence could also account for slight overhangs or set backs of later walls but there was not enough evidence to support this interpretation. was not strong enough. What Jez excavated illustrates this sequence beautifully, it needn’t be a rule in the construction of every building . So the south section shows that the level IX wall 447 was constructed over the infill of level X in building 18, the later wall totally misses the earlier alignment and whether deliberately or not the misalignmemt reduces building 16 dimensions by c. 40-50cm to the west but gains extra along the south where we don’t see the south wall because it’s set back from building 7 and 18. So the sequence could be: the roof is taken down, possibly broken up/sifted, the walls are reduced broken up and sifted or the roof and wall broken up and sifted together possibly in situ infilling the building to create a firm and compact foundation raft, levelled, then the walls of the later building are constructed.
At the moment Jez and Nurcan are excavating the north wall 497 to building 22, this is interesting because it appears to be wider than usual. To the north there appears to be a confusing sequence, the current theory (and this is still under excavation ) is that whilst space 115 (midden) was filling up, part of wall 497 collapsed or eroded , ‘midden’ continued to bank up against this collapsed or eroded face and then at some stage was repaired by the construction of wall 503, only 1-2 courses in places and then further ‘midden’ built up, the only reason we can come up with is to protect this face of the wall. Jez and Nurcan will continue to excavate this area to define the width of wall 497 and then stop but I suspect this sequence continues eastwards until we hit the westward extent of wall 79 (south wall to building 2 which does continue beyond the west limit of that building).
Still on walls, in the past we’ve sometimes found plaster rendering on the abutting side of double walls and not really understood why, this could indicate that it formed the external face of a wall prior to the construction of a neighbouring building, This should be possible to test out and then could illustrate that the external face of the walls were plastered, which makes sense anyway.Entered By: Shahina Farid |
