Postmortems for Workshop #1: Stratigraphy

Andy Paczkowski's postmortem:

Beginning from the point at which the foundations for the wall were laid, we see first that a wall was built, its inside to its right. There are four distinctly packed floor levels which show that the space was in use for a long time until the top of the wall fell down. It appears to have been struck from the left since all the debris fell to the right on top of the last floor level. Since the two strata to the left of the wall directly above its foundation are absent from the right side, it seems that the space remained in use while these strata were developing. In the thick stratum covering the wall, there appear to be fragments of man-made objects. There are not many, but their absence from the other strata warrants investigation. The area must have been used in a different way after the wall debris became buried, perhaps--though not frequently--as a place to discard refuse.

Above that stratum, several phenomena seem to have been placed in the same time period. Starting from the right, there lies the building and its foundations of stone. The foundations seem thick enough to hold a very heavy building. The three tiered platforms could be the base of a temple. Directly below E is a space that differs from the foundations, evidently filled in with rubble after the stones were laid. I see two possibilities for this space: either it was left empty during the construction of the building as working room for people to perhaps guide and place the stones, or it was excavated to be filled with stones but the project was later modified and no longer required. Either way it appears to contain unused or broken building materials or refuse.

Directly under B is a deep hole lined with stone, filled with various materials, and covered. I do not know the purpose of such a hole, but we can try to interpret its contents. These many layers of different materials appear to have been put into the hole intentionally. The nondescript shards could be pottery, but from just this drawing we cannot be certain. The space to the left of the hole was paved with flat stones probably to be stood upon by people using the hole, which means they would have been facing the temple. Perhaps the hole contains votive deposits or similar objects of religious importance.

Eventually the hole and its paved area went out of use and became covered by three strata. Directly under A there is an excavation, obviously human activity because the side and bottom are straight. On the left side of this excavation there are three strata wildly different from what should be there given the strata on the right. In a closer look at the bottom of the excavation, we see that the lowest object hangs over the bottom, past an original left boundary. This proves that the three objects must have been placed by humans after the digging of the excavation. Some time after those things were placed, the excavation was filled in with material. If the drawing can be trusted to such a level of detail, it shows that the top of this material does not lie flush with the top stratum, exposing to the air the right angle of the top right edge of the excavation. Such a sharp feature must be recent because it would fade with erosion in a relatively short time.

Jeff Emanuel's postmortem:

The stratigraphy workshop ended with discussion of the stratum which begins around 53.3 meters MSL (and angles upward to 53.5m), which appears to be the most advanced occupation to that point, with the remains of a wall present at the site. The foundation trench, though extremely shallow, extends downward into the previous stratum, but the base of the wall itself is positioned at approximately 54.45m.

The right side of the wall appears to represent the interior. Evidence of later occupation on that side lend credence to the theory, but the most striking evidence of interior location – and of lengthy (perhaps continuous) occupation – is the multiple thin layers of earth which appear to represent repeated attempts at flooring the area. In my opinion, this was a private wall, funded by individuals, rather than a defensive wall funded by government; the main reason for this is the narrow, rather flimsy construction, and the shallow foundation trench.

The most recent evidence of developmental inhabitation begins at 54m and continues to approximately 54.8m. The 0.6-0.8m layer of earth (which contains few foreign objects) could represent either a long period of no inhabitation, or, more likely in my opinion, a man-made leveling of the earth to prepare for future building projects. A further study of the inclusions in that layer – typology, dating, etc. – would be necessary to reach a firmer conclusion regarding the length of time represented by that stratum.

The 54.8m stratum bears out this second theory, as the most advanced engineering evidence can be found there: a well (which cuts through all of the previous strata, down to 51.4m), and a temple. The foundation trench is broad and deep (almost 2m), with large cut stone propping up the remains of an apparently monumental temple structure.

On the left side of the diagram is a remnant of a cut stone structure; without context, there is little that can be asserted about its size, date, or use.

At 55.2m is present day; like the thick layer of earth from 54 to 54.8m, the present-day strata is composed of a flat, thick, likely man-made layer, which conceals all but the temple remains (leveling out the base of the temple, and occluding the early staircase).

This site appears to have been continuously (or at least repeatedly) inhabited for a significant period of time. Whether this was the case because of its defensible location, numinous qualities, or simple tradition is not clear without larger context; likewise, whether the temple was planned before the well was dug, or was built in part because the well-digging uncovered a possibly sacred previous burial, is not known.