| Entry: | This season of excavation reached an older phase of B52 which corresponds to a period of intense remodeling of the building. The western wall was rebuilt on a slightly different path (2140 to 2183) and a new space was thus created (576 become 92/91). This latter wall (2183 which is now fully removed) is bounded with the walls enclosing space 90. Thus, this remodeling event in B52 is also the moment of creation of space 90 (previously a midden area), the existence of which cannot be separated from the history of B52. At the same time wall 2106 and 2032 were built in top of older walls. This may correspond with the creation of space 93 since its earlier level is a very thick infill layer sitting on top of an old and very eroded floor going under wall 2140. In space 94, the plaster floors of the western platforms were heavily truncated. A “bench” seems to have been intentionally removed before the construction of the new wall. The bucranium, probably installed at the same time as the new wall, was sitting right above the spot previously occupied by the bench (in a very Çatalhöyük continuity through destruction way).
Although, this episode of heavy remodeling does not correspond to the moment when the two hypothetical pre-52 buildings were merged by the truncation of the double-wall in between them. The top of the truncated part of this double wall was nevertheless probably reached at the bottom of a post retrieval pit (F. 7770) excavated this year. This post-retrieval pit is part of the remodeling event and at least a couple of previous distinct floors can be seen in between the current level and the top of the truncated walls. The remodeling event therefore happened when B52 was already in use for some time, but also quite before the final phase. This shows that the complexity of the architectural sequence of B52 is not restricted to the final or earliest phase but is also happening during its long period of occupation.
One can think about this remodeling in terms of the intensity of architectural work and labour: was it possible to make such changes without removing or rebuilding the roof? It is still very difficult to say if the eastern part of B52 was also the object of such a re-construction process since, except in between spaces 290/255, the walls of the two hypothetical pre-52 buildings remained separated in B52. Therefore, it is not possible to follow the bounding of walls as proof of a contemporary construction process. This information could however be very useful for understanding the relationship between the two pre-52 buildings echoing throughout the B52 sequence (Is their a leading building that claims and then controls the other one? Should it be the one that changes or the one that doesn't?). In any case, this testifies that B52 was characterized by a dynamic of constant change which doesn't manifest through the “reconstruction on top of” process but rather through modification of existing architectural reality. This starts at least with the merging of the two pre-52 buildings and continues through this remodeling event and the later B52 phase. In this context, the radical rupture of the burning event and construction of B51 within the ruins can be read as also contrasting with the usual way of dealing with continuity at Çatalhöyük. However, it goes in the opposite direction, reduction rather than aggrandizement. Could it be as reaction to this previous history?
The excavation of space 290 shows a longer and more elaborated sequence of layers than expected for such a small side room, but it doesn't allow us to connect it so far with the rest of the building's stratigraphy. It is likely that the only link possible will be through the excavation of its walls and understanding of their relationship with space 94 to determine when space 290 was created. On the contrary, space 255 provides information that improves our knowledge of the general sequence of the building. The 2015 season reached a dirty floor on top of a nice plaster floor (22260), associated with a pedestal and a post-hole in the most southern part of the space which may have been an entrance to B52. This floor was first thought to be in phase with the crawl-hole 7761 into wall 7774 and with the current floor of space 94 (21390/21393), rebuilt and raised with a very thick layer of infill during the remodeling episode along with the two northern platforms. But floor 22260 in space 255 goes under wall 7774, while floor 21393 in space 94 is lipping up. This would mean that the two spaces are not fully in phase: space 255 being older than space 94 (and crawl-hole 7761). This pre-space 255 (with its nice plastered floor) could thus have been the southern-most extremity of an older main space of B52 (94+255) which was later separated by wall 7774 (wall 2015 seems older and did not fully separated 255 from 94). This would also explain what looks like an entrance in the southeastern corner of space 255 while the exact same configuration (posthole + pedestal) is also present in the southeastern corner of space 94. The former could have been an earlier entrance moved to space 94 when space 255 was separated from the main room and became a specialized side room, accessible only by a small crawl-hole (7761) no longer qualifying for the entrance of the building. This transformation also requires heavy work on the superstructure and is older than the remodelling episode reached elsewhere in the building (since the floor 21390/21393 of space 94 is the last one before this event). This adds another moment of architectural change playing with existing materiality. Only the excavation of floor 21390/21393 in space 94 would test this hypothesis and asnwer the question of whether or not this earlier change is contemporary with the creation of B52 by the merging of the two earlier buildings. |
