| Entry: | It’s been a week since my last diary entrance and many exciting things have happened after that, therefore this record is quite long.
One of that things is that Ashley joined me on the excavation of burial 3808, which has been a real joy for me! Barbara too was often present and more than frequently asked for interpretations about the peculiar position of the bones that were progressively found. Many times Liz and Ceren had to pass by to answer our questions about the terrific amount of phytholits and wood brought to light, and Sean too was not spared from our inquisition about the exceptional concentration of blades in such a tiny little space.
I deeply appreciated and really enjoyed this strict collaboration with almost all the specialists present on site (only Jesse was spared - for now - but the infill is not completely empty, so there is still hope: ah!). It is something that I never really had the chance to experiment in my professional life and that I think should be indispensable in order to get as much information as possible directly on site.
My first report and impressions about what has been found is what follows.
As already mentioned in the previous entry, after the removal of Sk22195 we stumbled upon a second deposition composed of a skull placed into an organic container (Sk 22196).
The skull was plastered with a red pigment (cinnabar: a preliminary microscope analysis made by Ashley revealed a high mercury concentration in it), which seems to cover the upper part of the head only (apparently there are no traces of it on the mandible, but a microscope inspection would be necessary to confirm this hypothesis). Another layer, only partially conserved, can possibly be related to a white plaster covering the skull: where preserved, the plaster is white, smooth and lies over the red pigment (also in this case a closer inspection will help to validate the nature of this layer).
Above the red pigment and, where conserved, above the plaster, is a high concentration of phytholits: at the moment it is not clear if the phytholits belong to the container of the skull or to a matting/texture different from it and wrapping the skull only.
Due to its form and to the large amount of phytholits conserved, one of the hypothesis is that the container was a basket: at the moment we can’t exclude that also other organic elements were contained into the container (as for example the phytholits layer covering the red pigment seems to suggests).
One of them was definitely a wooden object with a flat surface (now mineralized): the shape is almost circular and at least its south-eastern corner seems to have a vertical side (1 cm hight). Only after the removal of the container and its analysis in the laboratory, it will be possible to have clearer answers about its nature and function: at the moment it looks like a plate to me. Under the ‘plate’ was another layer of phytholits, that should probably be related to the bottom of the container itself.
To sum up, the skull is surrounded by a superposition of layers: the ones covering directly the bones are basically pigment and plaster that ‘decorate’ it. The rest are organic residues that can be related to its conservation: a container (most likely a basket), a wooden plate over which the skull was lying and distinct phytholits layers (matting/textiles/other) surrounding it.
Apart from the skull, in the container were also: 2 daggers made of flint (lying under the mandible) and a shell (abutting the eastern side of the container).
Other than the skull and its elaborated container, also other items were deposited in the burial: a spherical ground stone with circular grooves going in different directions, 4 obsidian blades lying over a thick (3 cm) layer of phytholits (a bundle of weed/reed/other over which the blades were possibly deposited: waiting for phytholits people to confirm/disprove this hypothesis), another shell that in the inner side was covered by red brushstrokes probably made with the same pigment used to paint the skull. The shell seems to have been the container were the pigment was stirred before painting the skull.
This extremely rich burial, probably one of the richest of the entire site in term of the grave items associated to it, might be related to the overlying skeleton 22195. The latter one, composed of a bundle of bones wrapped into a phytholits layer was in fact missing the skull (and also other bones: hands and feet for example). The extreme proximity of the 2 depositions, the homogeneity of the burial’s infill, the exceptional quantity of phytholits found in both of them (in both cases probably related to the use of organic elements such as basket, matting/textile, wood, other), the selection of the bones and the fact that they both are secondary depositions, suggest that they could be related to the same event and maybe also to the same person.
First they buried the skull/container/grave items (inside and outside the container) and in a second time, probably not too far, the overlying bundle of bones.
Through this last action the shape of the burial changes: from a squared burial (70 x 70 cm) in the first deposition to an oval burial with a massive step along its northern side in the upper one (70 x 33 cm).
How did this happen? I see 2 possibilities:
1. quite a short time after the deposition of the skull & co. they filled the northern side of the burial and compacted it. In this way they created some kind of massive step in the northern side and an oval niche in the southern side: in the latter space they placed the bones’ bundle;
2. quite a short time after the deposition of the skull & co. they excavated a hole in the exact place where the skull had been buried and in the oval space obtained they put the bones’ bundle.
I can’t really say which of the 2 hypothesis fits better: both of them are probably possible. The only thing that they have in common is the short lapse of time passing between the 2 depositions, as the contiguity of the 2 groups of bones and the lack of clear distinctive traits (evident cut, heterogeneous infill) between them seems to suggest. |
