| Entry: | Work on removing the upper phase of the N half of the building went very well today, with exciting evidence already appearing directly under the floors. Louise removed the curving wall feature (Feature 20) and it came down on to a lavishly plastered surface which is clearly a platform in the SW corner of Space 71 adjacent to the access to Space 70. This platform will belong to the main pre-burning phase of the building. So as you face the E side of wall 3 there is a symmetrical arrangement of platforms at each corner of Space 71. Gavin has begun work in a 1 x 1 m square in the N of Space 71, just clipping the E edge of platform 13. He has stripped off the top plaster and there are stretches of red-painted face to the underlying version of the platform. He is removing the upper floors adjacent to the platform and has come down onto the under-floor packing which is quite thick against the S face of the main N wall (wall 5) but thinner towards the centre of the room. Nurcan is removing the upper floors in the 1 x 1 m square diagonally to the SE from Gavin. The floors have come off well on to packing, very hard packed, and there are traces of sub-floor features belonging to wall 18, including an animal horn set into a plastered line at right angles to wall 18. There are flecks of red-painted plaster around this area and in Gavin's square. There is also a clear plaster line running E-W which may be a relict of an earlier wall continuing the alignment of wall 8 or of a step down to the S from the northern floors. Mehmet has continued excavating the upper floors and packing in Space 111 and has now come down on to earlier floors in 2 of his 4 small squares. He found a human humerus deliberately placed under the floor parallel to the N face of wall 8. Serap and I have continued to excavated upper deposits in Space 110. We have removed the upper white plaster floors from the NE and SW quadrants of the room, coming down in part onto burnt surfaces. There are so far two pits cut through the burnt lower floors, one entirely in the NE quad, the other in the centre of the room. I am excavating the NE one and have so far descended some 40 cm in to the cut with no finds beyond a couple of obsidian scrapers, but I am sure there will be a burial in it. In the other cut, which Serap is partly excavating, there are already human bones, including a tooth in the upper fill. My pit is definitely sealed by the upper white floors, but Serap's seems to be visible on top of the white floors so may be later - we shall see, as we dig it. So my pit was dug after the burning of the building but before the replastering which went with the major post-fire reorganisation of the building. There are traces of red-painted floor plaster in Serap's square which we think pre-date the burning. There is also a neat plaster wall line running N-S which is the expected earlier W wall of Space 110 about 1 m to the E of the later, post-burning wall (wall 9). The simple story so far: Building 1 developed from an elegant, red-painted capacious residence to a scrappy, colourless, chopped up series of spaces. But we know not what yet lies under the floors....Entered By: Roger Matthews |
