| | Area: South | | | | Dug in Year: 1997 | | Feature Type: wall | | | | Related Photo (Click to view larger version in new window) | | | | | Location: dividing wall between spaces 112 & 113, N-S aligned, earlier phase of space 112. | | | Sheet not yet completed
Bleda During, 30-0704.
The following discussion is based on the excavation of the northern 1/3 of this wall excavated in 2004. This is the east wall to spaces 112 and 231 (northern room of this building).
In the extant part of the wall it is up to ten courses high. The bricks are an orange compact and greasy clay matrix, the mortar is a grey compact clay. Bricks are about 26 cms wide and about 5 cms high and maybe some 72 cms long. The mortar between the bricks is about 2-3 cm high. The bricks seem to have been laid in alternating layers.
The structure of the wall is extremely difficult to see in freshly exposed parts of the wall, where the outline of bricks and mortar can often not be traced. By contrast those parts of the wall that have been exposed for a longer period are much clearer, It seems that drying affects the mortar and brick matrices differentially and makes them easier to separate.
The wall is plastered on both its eastern ans western face (interior space 112). The plaster on both ends consists of finely laminated beige white plaster layers, but the plaster coating in about 1 cm on the east face but ranges up to 3-4 cm on the western surface. The fact that the east surface is plastered might imply either that the wall served as a party wall at some point or that we are dealing with an external plastered wall. Certainly it implies that the wall (f.90?) to the east is later than f. 259.
Wall f. 259 was founded on wall 298, the east wall of space 162, of level 8. This foundation slopes down steeply from north to south, over a distance of some 3 meters (part excavated in 2004) the vertical difference amounts to about 80 cms. In the central part of the wall, near where the northern of the two posts was originally placed, the wall has a large overhang to the west (to the north the wall is more or less vertical), presumably due to pressure from deposits to the east. Unlike in the southern part of space 112 (where wall 253 was put in front of 259 at some point in mid sequence) no extra support walls were found in the part of the building excavated in 2004.
Wall 259 is bonded to 1700, which is the north wall of the building. The bricks and mortar of the two walls are completely identical. In the north of the wall, in space 231, a large niche, f. 1706, was cut out of the wall and plastered. Despite this feature the wall is still more or less vertical in this area, unlike to the south. For some reason the pressure on this stretch of the wall seems to have been much less than to the south. Post retrieval pit 1705 was dug next to the wall, to remove the northern of the two posts, whose plaster scar was still visible on the wall. The posts may have been removed mid-occupation, like the ones to the south (Farid South Area chapter).
NB a small section of wall 259 was kept in place in order to support the overhanging wall (f.90?) to east which would otherwise collapse. | | | | In situ Conservation: No | | Lifted: No | | | | Feature Relationships: | | above: (Click to view the record) 298 | | abutted by: (Click to view the record) 1705 | | bonded with: (Click to view the record) 1700 | | cut by: (Click to view the record) 1706 | | | | Number of Related Diary Entries: 9 | | | | Conservation Recorded: No | | Related Photos: 8 (Opens as a group in a new window) | Buildings: (Click to view the record)
| Spaces: (Click to view the record)
| | No. Of Units in this Feature: 9 (Click here to view unit list) |
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