Space Number:  40

Area: North  

Within Building Number: 128 

Phasing:
Mellaart Level: Unassigned at present 

Hodder Level: North.?G 

Additional Phase Info: ?G grouped with 4040 G on basis that northern sector of 4040 appears to be earlier than southern sector (4040.H). Phasing based on excavated sequence in FT 3 only. 

Description:
Defined in 1993-94 Scrape to North of East Mound. Unexcavated.
On plan possibly associated with Space 39.
Part excavated in FT 3 in 2007

This space sheet is used to summarize the 2012 season excavation of the grave cluster of space 40. It is not a complete documentation for space 40, but a convenient way to sum up what we have done this far. Please not that the below is preliminary observations before the human remains team's analyses.

The grave cluster in the north-west corner of space 40 was excavated during four weeks by two persons with additional help from the human remains team and one extra student. It consisted of eleven graves, all primary burials on separate occasions and in separate cuts. Nine of the individuals were subadults, one was an adult and one was an adult or a young adult. Two were buried with pointed bone tools and two had been wearing stone beads necklaces. A few of the early graves were severely disturbed by the later graves, but most skeletons were well preserved and more or less in articulation.

All individuals were laid down on their left side except for skeletons 20419, 20442 and 20445 which were lying on their right side. They all had tightly flexed legs with the knees towards the chest and more or less flexed arms with hands towards the chest or towards the chin. The orientation varied. The legs might have been bound, but there was no evidence of wrapping or such.

With exception for skeleton 20434, which was buried 0,10-0,15 m deeper than the other individuals, the graves were dug just deep enough to touch a plastered surface (F3669, 3670) or a compact layer or part of layer in the north-west corner of space 40 (light gray with salt accretions, not yet numbered). The grave diggers also avoided digging into the walls surrounding space 40. Perhaps the walls were still visible, perhaps people just looked for soft spots to dig in. They did not avoid digging into older graves, though, but simply pushed any older bones found towards the edges of the new cut. In some cases these older elements were still partly articulated.

For a while we thought that the graves were paert of a platform, but probably they are not. Facts pointing in this way are F3670's slight intrusion into the west wall and, especially, the eastern part of the grave cluster floating out a bit too freely and far to the east. It was hard to tell, though, as the surface was just by the modern ground level and badly eroded. Preliminary, before the rest of space 40 is excavated, we think that the graves were dug into the space after the house were backfilled. The grave infill and the surrounding material, though, is very homogenous and not really looking like house infill.

All infills being very similar to each other and the surrounding material caused problems defining the grave cuts. Probably the infills have been dug up and reused again and again within a limited time span. The positions of the skeletons and disarticulated elements, though, provided a good picture of the cuts and the stratigraphy.

See also the matrix and plan sketch on space sheet. 

Number of Related Diary Entries: 14

Conservation Recorded: No

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