Neonate/infant burial. Grave first seen in section left by Mellaart during excavation in the 1960s as a small cut below upper plaster surface (10407) of platform F1501. Upon excavation this was confirmed which has proved to be interesting. It means that the burial was cut into make up layer (10448), the packing layer in between plaster surfaces (10407) and (10451). Normally, burials relating to platforms are cut into the plaster and then replastered, often with what looks like an inferior quality plaster, which must sink and provides hollows within the platforms surface. Perhaps this method is a way of conquering this problem and to provide a nice smooth plastered surface, with no cuts or blemishes.
Apparently no comparisons are known, so interpretation is both difficult and objective. Are we looking at a change in method as a whole, or a one-off event for a purpose we havent thought of? It survives in a building at Level 4 or 5, fairly high up in the sequence, so it could be that it is a methodological change. And are we to assume that this large community did everything in the same way, including burial practices? Surely methods changed from house to house, family to family. And as a neonate/infant, is this an explanation to a different approach?
Or does this different method show a change to attempt to deal with the obvious problem of the smell of decomposition. Was this an attempt to deal with the problem, to cap the burial within a final layer of plaster, c.0.01m thick.
This is a clear indication of the link between burial and replastering. |
