| Entry: | This is my first and last dairy entry for the season. The reason for this is the fact that I am here for only two weeks (which should mean at least two entries, but I have been a bit lazy) and that we haven’t found so much on the West mound.
That said, we have actually found quite a lot, but maybe not the clear structures of the Chalcolithic we have been hoping for. In my opinion this is one of the major differences between digging on the East and West mounds. In the North area on the East mound the the initial scraping of the surface had already taken place and the top of the walls were already more or less defined. On the West mound we are starting from the top (even though when I came out two weeks ago the first few decimeters were already gone) and we have to deal with all later "disturbance".
The area where the trench is placed seems to have been used during later periods, especially during Byzantine time. There are not only the graves but also other activities that have left various pits and even some postholes behind. The graves are intresting as they seem to be very elaborate but I think it would also be intresting to know how these other activities relate to the graves. Some of the pits may be grave robbery pits but how does the three post holes in a row fit in, for example. Do they represent the remains of a house? This house may have been something other than a house to live in if it is contemporary with the graves. It may be related to the graves even it it is later then the graves, maybe some kind of ancestors building??? In one of the postholes (7255) an iron nail was found not unlike the ones found in the bigger grave (F726) which may suggest it is at least from roughly the same period.
As the Byzantine people seem to have been digging so much in the ground on the West mound they must have came across much of the earlier remains in the mound. We know this as we find large quantities of Chalcolithic pottery in the fill of their pits. And they must also have dug into and distroyed some of the walls of the Chalcolithic buildings we cannot find now.? I am wondering how they explained this presens of earlier people in the same place? Did they think of them as ancestors or as some completely different people with no relation to them? After all a long period of time had passed, but again, did they have a rough idea of this long period or did they regard this as some remains of a distant past without age? It is difficult to say anything about this, but I think a closer look at spatial relations between Byzantine remains and earlier features, both Chalcolithic and Neolithic, both on the East and West mounds may show some patterns if the earlier remains were treated in any special way. In any case, a comparison between the West mound area and the Summit area where the Polish team is excavating would be very intresting. Was the East mound the main area of burials during the Byzantine time, and only a few were chosen to be buried on the West mound? Or is there a time difference between the two areas?
It is intresting to think of the significance of this place, how much it has changed over time. Today this is the most remote place, in the middle of nowhere. But it was an important center during so many centuries, both during the Neolithic, the Chalcolithic and also as a burial place during the Byzantine period. The significance changed of course, but what happened after the Byzantine period? And how about the Bronze Age? Was it forgotten? Not used but remembered in oral traditions? For how long? Maybe it was always present is some kind of local traditions or stories, even though Mellaart "rediscovered" it.Entered By: Åsa Berggren |
