| Entry: | Diary entry 5
In the last few days, I have been working on platform F1312, taking down the layers and working out the relationships with the surrounding features. The area around the rubbish pit (F.1325) has become a little clearer, but some of the layers still seem to intermix and the stratigraphy is still not always certain - there is some mixing of layers, making edges hard to see, and in areas the soil has become extremely compacted, squashing nad cementing layers together, possibly aided by water action and trampling, if this area does lie below the building entrance. Some small layers of compact plaster were removed (10699, 11204) that were laying on top of a floor surface which later proved to be sealing compact plaster from the other side of a dip (which today became the possible ladder cut). This could represent many phases of damage, erosion ad repair followed by trampling and muddlig of the units.
Having taken off a plaster face from the pillaster and part of the back wall, (11211, 11209) and stripped back a layer from the front of the platform butting up to the floor (11200) more floors were removed, eventually leading to 11240. This floor was a compound of 3 layers of orange and grey, all seemingly floors and make-ups. This was allowable because crumbling and erosion in some areas showed a common lighter grey floor (10650) appearing all over the platform, and because the various relationships to the features around had either already been demonstrated with floors, or because plaster faces from walls still showed relationships - but no information was lost from doing this. The removal of this layer released a plaster layer on the bench boardering the platform (F1310), and showed up a cut in the floor beside the platform and the rubbish pit - the cut followed the line of another cut I had taken out previously which consisted of remaining midden fill which had lain below previous floors and make-ups but which had come free after removal of 11228. That material (11223) had been soft and dirtier than the stuff around it, as with the rubbish pit stuff. This second fill in the cut (11246 and 11232 respectively) was much harder and more compact than the first one, it proved really quite tough to excavate with a trowel, by chipping pieces away until I could prise out a block - sadly it also carried some of the surrounding material away with it, which crumbled and shattered when I tried to separate out the layers. Wendy took a small sample of what could be found of the first fill (a small amount of similar looking material actually appeared under the second fill, but this has been placed on archive with a sample of the 2nd fill, not sampled immediately). One more plster surface from the bench (11252) and one light-grey floor layer later and the bench is now down to a uniform orange surface that looks like it may be the final layer, or initial platform construction. This releases another plaster surface from the bench which will be done tomorrow.
The platform still slopes dramatically round the edges, in the space of about 2cm it falls maybe 5-6 cm - it is unsure what this represents, maybe the wall plaster that has fallen away and been incorporated into the platform structure - a plaster face on the wall seems to respect the floor even with the slump - another idea is that the floors may continue under the wall and into another building as a crawl hole, or that this may represent a former doorway entrance into the house as Mellart has argued he found which was later bricked up. More exploration of the walls is needed to investigate this but this may lead under another building…Entered By: Alex Pryor |
