| Entry: | First diary entry of 2005 season. The south summit shelter appears to work very well at protecting the archaeology, the area, building 44 just needed a bit of a sweep and we could begin again. Began digging on Wednesday and started removing some of the fiddly bits of archaeology we left in situ last year, mainly in and around Platform F. 1321. Two cluster deposits along the edge of the Platform were removed 11473 from deposit 11466 and 11497 from deposit 11473. These would definitly appear placed around the edges of the platform within the floors and construction material of the platform itself, mainly between the platform and bench to the north and south, respectively F. 1321 and F. 1310. Also removed the second of the 'buccrania' holes from bennch F. 1310 (11603/11604). The fill of this 11603 would appear to be the same material as that facing the bench on its northern side. As tis was the second rendering of the Bench then the function of the holes would appear to be short lived and within the primary phase of the Bench. The holes were also very shallow and would not probably not have anything substantial. John Swogger suggested the holes may be the result of uprights for a screen and I see nothing wrong with that interpretation given that we already know their was a divide between clean and dirty floors at this arae of the building. One of the Turkish students Havel helped out on Thursday and he removed two plaster surfaces from Platform F. 1321 11600 and 11606 We would now appear to be down to the construction/make up level on this platform. Once we remove the last remaining plaster surfaces on the walls, benches and platforms along the esatern side of the building well pretty much be down to the construction primary construction phase all over the building. This of course leaves us with the problem of the skeletons within platform F. 1321. This is throwing up some intersting questions about their deposition. At the moment we are digging slightly out of sequence as the platform edge 11495 and the Benches sould be removed first, before we tackle the burials. What appears to have happened is the platforms are roughly constructed and their faces are finished of with mud brick and then plastered over. The burials would appear to be within this primary construction material. Despite rigorous cleaning and taking this construction materiial down in spits we still can not see any real cuts for the bodies. What at first appears to be edges turn out to be dumps of similar material consisting the make up for the platfrom. This material also contains lots of disarticulated human bone, which either derives from earlier burials disturbed by later ones, or has been deilberately sourced and placed within the platform make up. If the former is the case then the material making up the platform is effectively a burial soil and should be treated as such as cuts will be very difficult to distinguish in constantly reworked soil as burials are inserted into this area. If more than one burial is present, and the presence of 5 skulls suggest that this is the case, then the area would have been used for burial over a certain amount of time. How long this may have been of course is open to question, are the burials insreted in a rapid sequence or are they inserted over a longer period of time?. Whatever the case the important fact is that they are buried prior to the 'finishing' of the platform. Another scenario is that there is no sequnece of individual burials and any burials that are present are being deliberately placed here in the knowledge that the platform is about to be built and the bodies are then buried by soil collected from previous burial areas, hence the disarticulated bones within the soil surrounding the articulated bodies. Anyway only time and excavation will tellEntered By: RR |
