| Entry: | entry 9
The last few days have been spent up on the East walls, rather than in the building. Roddy took over my excavations on the North platform which had been put on hold for Richard while he was looking at platform 1320, stratiagraphically the north platform is still not released but a thin strip has been left to preserve the relationships. There is a lot of burnt material turning up, it is still looking like a hearth. The walls have been a big messy job, but at the same time has still managed to have complications! The floors are running under the walls to the southern end, and seem to have been truncated by something else, maybe the cut for building 10 walls. There is a layer of midden like material lying on top of what looks like the remains of building 44 walls, (11436) which is currently disappearing under the walls we had been assuming belonged to 44, but it seems that although they initially looked as if they were plaster faced, it may now be that a subsequent cut removed most of building 44 walls and replaced them with a foundation layer, and walls which followed almost exactly the same path as they had done - probably the walls of building 10.
There have been several different types of mudbrick, one harder and one a very soft and fine, sandy-like material. In addition there was a slightly whiter type as well. Looking at the mortar only revealed two distinct types, one higher up which was slightly lighter, and the one lower down which was slightly darker. This may or may not represent a real difference in context, as all the bricks and mortar fit neatly into one coherent wall (building 44 walls assumed to be bricks 1224 and 11464, possibly also 11462, mortar 1225, possibly also 11463).
Now the edges of building 44 have been categorically defined in the SE corner and the NE corner. But it seems as if more material needs to be removed to fully expose the wall mudbricks themselves which actually went with building 44, currently under cut for the building 10 wall. Later thisafternoon Roddy joined me, and partially exposed what looks like a floor layer under the midden layer which is respecting the building 44 walls - and which possibly matches some of the slumping floors of platform 1312 - this would indicate an extra room in the SE corner, heading off to the east. Tomorrow will tell if this is the case.Entered By: Alex Pryor |
