| Entry: | End of the second week of this season. Overall I think we have every reason to be happy with the progress so far and we can now be reasonably confident of completing the excavation of Building 1 in all its phases this season. The excitement is certainly increasing as we progress with the excavation of Building 1. Over the past two days work has progressed thus: Serap has now completed the excavation of all deposits from over the floor of Space 70 - this room is now completely excavated to its floors. In the last few square centimetres of deposits Serap made an exciting find: two adjacent clumps of carbonised acorns lying directly on the floor, surviving in very good shape and totalling perhaps 50 or 60 in number. Parts of a sheep foot and lower leg were also on the floor nearby. These have all now been removed and the floor totally exposed in Space 70. Mehmet has continued excavation of the pit against the E face of the N-S wall dividing Spaces 70 and 71. This semi-circular pit cuts through room fill in Space 71 but respects the E face of the wall - the pit seems to have been dug in order to expose this wall face. It may be that the aim was to remove or alter some important feature on this face. The pit itself is cut from the surviving surface of the mound and is therefore not stratigraphically sealed and can only be dated as post-occupation of Building 1, but is certainly not modern. It may be an instance of later Neolithic activity in an abandoned building or even of Hellenistic, Roman or Byzantine archaeology in action. The Classical occupants of Catalhoyuk in the course of digging their graves and brick pits must have occasionally stumbled across some of the Neolithic wonders beneath their feet. Louise has finished digging to the floor around the centre of Space 71 and is now removing room fill immediately east of Mehmet's pit, tracing the curving brick feature which is a later addition to the room. Gavin has been removing room fill in Space 71 just to the W of Space 110 and this morning made a major discovery. He was removing large sheets of fallen wall plaster when he exposed a large portion of a bucranium with attached horn. This had clearly originally been heavily plastered and is closely connected with the brick and plaster feature that Louise had cleared just to the north. After drawing the relevant parts of the sections of the main baulk, Gavin is now removing the baulk here in order completely to expose the bucranium and associated brick and plaster feature. It is turning into a very large feature, composed of laid brick with lavish plaster, dominating the central part of Space 71. It has clearly collapsed onto the floor at the abandonment of the building, pulling with it large sheets of multiple applications of fine yellow-white wall plaster. No traces of paint here, as yet. Engin has exposed more of the floors along the southern part of Space 71, but there is little room for him to move here while Gavin is working and so I have moved Engin to start work in the external gap between Building 1 and the next building to the E where he has been excavating ashy rubbish. Nurcan has been removing the last of the deposits on the step between Spaces 71 and 110. I have been excavating mixed rubbish from the N end of the 80 cm wide strip between Building 1 and the adjacent building to the E, tracing the unplastered external wall face of the main E wall of Building 1. This will give us some idea of the total surviving height of Building 1, and of the adjacent building. It is also providing greater artefactual and object information. This morning I recovered a fine stone mace-head, pierced right through - it probably rolled off the roof one Neolithic night. All in all we are within sight of completing the excavation of the main upper phase of Building 1. I have now drawn up a plan for the excavation through these upper floors - this will be done in metre squares, aligned to follow the architecture, with 10 squares in Space 70 and 25 squares covering Spaces 71, 110 and 111. This will provide us with wealth of sections through the floors and interwoven deposits and will enable Wendy to take blocks for thin-section analysis from all interesting points. I hope this operation will not be too time-consuming. I think Building 1 will be the most thoroughly and meticulously excavated building in the history of Near Eastern archaeology.Entered By: Roger Matthews |
