Day 7 - Rubble walls and a storage jars.

Today trench 2 really came into its own. The walls are clear and are showing major differences. The back wall is clearly made out of well-coursed tile and limestone rubble, with no mortar nor spolia, but the rest of the walls look uncoursed and chaotic, with one broken piece of column suggesting a time regime of access to high-value materials.

The back wall

Perhaps we are dealing with two phases. The front wall of the shops also seems to lack a front face: it may simply have collapsed unless we have not found it yet. We equally so far lack any doors to our space. But one items has encouraged us greatly to stick with our interpretation of shops: this is a the discovery of a massive storage jar set against the inside of this same wall. Such installations commonly occur within shops, being used as fridges, grain stores, or occasionally (when lined), for liquids. This might have been part of a shop counter, even set into a floor, if all our observations so far are wrong. There is still a great deal of rubble to be shifted inside, which might well preserve some more. The portico in contrast is now revealing coherent stratigraphic levels of occupation, under the rubble.

A storage jar

Trench 1 is now in selective excavation mode. After cleaning all the major insertions into the mortar floor were clear. Most obvious was the 7th c. water pipe, cutting across the rubble of the collapsed shop. Another hole is certainly a pit, a third a small disturbance that quickly came down onto a slab over which the shops extended. But then a second grave appeared, clearly under the rubble. Sam, a funerary archaeology specialist had it recorded in no time, with a battery of modern techniques that he is well-used to trying out. He is convinced now that we are dealing with an early Christian cemetery of likely 6th to 7th c. date with graves aligned E-W, both covered by the collapse of the building, which it seems possible might have had an ecclesiastical phase. This interpretation was strengthened by the discovery of a graffito cross with flared ends on the side of one of the blocks used in the first grave. It is a slight trace rather than a decoration, and nothing else here yet supports the idea of a church, but we must consider it possible.

It is still roasting on site, if not quite as bad as last week. We thought sickness was over until our most hard-working Turkish student, who burns the candle at both ends and in the middle, suddenly fell sick and had to be taken off to the doctors. Too long sat in the sun recording and too little sleep it seems. Now she is on the mend and recovering away from our boiling trenches. Francis is now working in the hottest spot of all – the pavement of the colonnaded street, where he has begun sondages. More on that tomorrow. Now time for tea break under a reliable tree that allows us to set in shade whilst overlooking a great panorama by the Hellenistic fortification, a part of Sagalassos strangely reminiscent of Weathertop, if you are a Tolkien fan.