| Entry: | As I am hopefully escaping for a few days I suppose that I should record a few thoughts about space 113/150/151.
Southern Wall 75 - removed the eastern half as [2367] - bricks and [2368] - mortar plus [2369] - accumulation behind. This wall is definitely later than the eastern wall 88. The southern and western walls seem to have been truncated but not the eastern wall. This is probably because it was protected by being adjacent to the wall of shrine 14 whereas the southern wall bordered an open area. The eastern wall would therefore survive better and could be reused for the later building whereas the others which were in a poorer condition could not.
Oven 252 - so far I have removed half the infilling [2365] and done some recording. It is an extremely interesting structure and possibly unique for the site as it goes right through wall 97 connecting spaces 150 and 151. I can't tell yet if it was built prior to the wall, with the wall or inserted later although on practical grounds the easiest solution would be for it to be contemporary with the wall. As far as I can tell the entrance must have been at the space 151 end as there is no sign of it in 150. When the oven went out of use it was carefully infilled, the superstructure in space 151 was demolished and the entrance was blocked up flush with the wall although it was not plastered. Stratigraphically it may well have been replaced by oven 87 and this would seem quite likely on practical grounds, ie they would presumably have still needed an oven, the two ovens are unlikely to be contemporary although this is not impossible and the fact that 252 was partially demolished whereas 87 was not suggests that 252 was earlier. The superstructure in space 150 was not demolished and was left protruding - why was it not treated like the space 151 end? I believe that space 150 may have gone out of use or have been of limited importance. one scenario is that the general infilling of space 150 occurred quickly after the infilling of oven 252 and that there was a period when space 151 was in use but 150 was not and that the use of 151 could even be contemporary with some of the activity of top of the 'platform' in 113. Stratigraphically this is impossible to prove or disprove.
Floors - the quest for the floors continues and gets ever more complicated. Thankfully Banu appears to be coming down onto floor in the south-west area under [2339] and we may be able to expand outwards from this point. The other areas are still problmatical especially the disaster area by the northern section where we have an apparent step that was not noted in plan and probably protrudes into the excavation area by centimetres.Entered By: Craig Cessford |
