Çatalhöyük 2004 Archive Report

ÇATALHÖYÜK 2004 ARCHIVE REPORT

Excavations of the 4040 Area

Building 47, Space 237 and Space 227

Doru Bogdan

Çatal core Team
Supervised by: Doru Bogdan
Site Assistants: Huseyin Kamalak, Candemir Zoroğlu.

Abstract

The area our team excavated in the 2004 season was supposed to contain one or more houses located between a potential street to the north of it and a midden or ‘street' to the south of it. These structures were identified by topsoil removal, during the 2003 season.

The first features we excavated were five Byzantine graves cutting through the Neolithic structures. At least three of them had the sides lined with wooden planks, while a fourth one had the sides and bottom lined with ceramic roof tiles.

Lower in sequence we identified a square building, later than all the other houses around. The pottery found within it, date Building 47 to Level IV-III, but no later than Level III. The house is very different from all the others found on site, having an unusual layout and building technique. Its walls were set directly on top of earlier walls, using large, rectangular, gray mudbricks, bonded together with red clay. Against the west wall, a massive platform was built with the same material, having at least two construction phases. The inner Space 237, had two raised areas at both northern and southern ends and an oval oven dug in the center of it. By the end of the season we recorded and removed Building 47 completely.

West from Building 47 we excavated the eastern half of Space 227, a room dated by the pottery to Level V-IV, with a platform in the north-eastern corner and an east-west bench in the middle. These features were plastered, as well as the floors between them. An important cluster of objects was found on the floor, including a marble figurine. Before the collapse of the walls, this room was used for waste disposal, over a thin layer of coprolite-type deposit on the floor and a large number of animal bones within overlying the fills. Some of these bones were possibly the result of feasting events that took place in the buildings around. An unusual discovery was the skeleton of an infant placed against the northern wall, covered with the same earth that filled the entire room.

Özet

2004 yılında kazdığımız alan kuzayinde olası sokak diye adlandırılan alan ile güneyinde çöplük dolgusunun yer aldığı birden fazla evden oluşmaktadır. Bu yapılar 2003 yılında yüzey toprağının atılması ile tanımlanmış alanlardır.

İlk kazılan öğeler (feature) Neolitik yapıları kesmekte olan beş Bizans gömüsüdür. Bunlardan en az üçü yan taraflarından kütüklerle desteklenmiş mezarlar olup, dördüncüsü ise yanları ve altı seramik parçaları ile kaplanmış olarak bulunmuştur.

Tabakalanmanın alt evrelerinde, kendisini çevreleyen diğer binalardan daha geç bir döneme ait olan kare şeklinde bir bina keşfettik. Bina 47'nin içinde bulunan çanak çömlek Seviye IV-III'e denk düşmekte fakat Seviye III'den daha geç bir evreye tarihlenmemektedir. Bulduğumuz ev, alandaki diğer evlerden sekli ve yapılanması ile farklılık göstermektedir. Duvarları daha erken evrelere ait duvarların üstüne yapılmış olup, büyük dikdörtgen şekilli, birbirine kırmızı kil ile bitiştirilmiş kerpiç tuğlalardan oluşmuştur. Batı duvarının önünde de aynı malzeme ile yapılmış iki evereden oluşan kocaman bir platform bulunmuştur. İçerdeki Alan 237'de ise kuzeyinine ve güneyine iki oval biçimli ocak yerleştirilmiş bulunan, iki yükselti bulunmaktadır. Bu sezonun sonunda Bina 47 tamamen kayda geçmiş ve kaldırılmıştır.

Bina 47'nin batısında ise Alan 227'nin doğu yarısı olan, çanak-çömlek tarihlemesine göre Seviye V-IV'ye denk düşen, kuzey doğu köşesinde bir patform ve ortasında doğu-batı doğrultulu bir oturma alanı saptanan bir oda bulunmaktadır. Bu öğeler, aralarındaki tabanlarda olduğu gibi sıvalanmış olarak bulunmuşlardır. Taban üstünde bir mermer figürinin de bulunduğu çok önemli buluntu topluluğu bulunmuştur. Duvarları yıkılmadan önce bu oda artık içim kullanılmış ve taban üzerinde ince bir kaprolit benzeri tabaka ile dolgunun üzerinde büyük hayvan kemikleri bulunmuştur. Bu kemiklerden bazıları muhtemelen çevre binalardaki törensel ziyafet olgusu ile bağlantılıdır. Bunun dışında bulunan bir diğer ilginç buluntu da kuzey duvarının dibinde bulunan ve odayı dolduran toprak ile örtülmüş bir bebek gömüsü idi.

Introduction

Building 47 and Space 227 are located roughly in the middle of the 10 x 40 meters strip excavated in the 2004 season, within the 4040 area see Fig 9). Between the 27th of June and the 5th of August, our team carried out work over an area of 100 square meters. The main objective for the season was to excavate the uppermost structures and potentially expose the latest Neolithic phase of occupation over the entire area. Work recommenced in the 2004 season from where it was left in 2003 when the topsoil was removed and a plan of the features exposed by surface scraping was produced. We spent the first days of the season removing the remains of the topsoil unit 10200) and various traces of erosion units 10201) and 10203). These later ones were relatively consistent layers since the excavated area is sloping towards east exposing all the uppermost structures to heavy erosion.

The Roman/Byzantine phase

The first in situ features encountered in the excavated area were: one circular pit with unclear function and a number of graves firmly dated as post-Neolithic, by the iron nails found inside them. The burials can be more specific dated, as post-roman by their east-west orientation, which strongly suggests the Christian funerary rite. An full report on the skeletons is made by the human remains specialists, since they were the ones who exposed and lifted the bones. There were few similarities and differences between the five graves, observed during the excavation process. A very individualised burial is feature F.1553 where the body was inhumed in a grave cut which was lined on the bottom and three sides with large ceramic roof tiles, carefully packed together, creating a box, which preserved its shape unbroken (Fig. 26). Ten tiles were used for this purpose but instead of an eleventh one to close the box by the skeleton's feet, a mudbrick was used. The grave contained no funerary objects.

Figure 26: Roman grave F.1553

No other graves lined with ceramic building material were found. In three other graves features F.1550, F.1551 and F.1552) we identified wood remains and a large number of iron nails. Our first interpretation was that the bodies were laid in timber coffins, but because the planks were placed directly against the grave cuts, nailed to wooden posts driven into the ground, we believe that the graves were lined with wood similar method but different material from feature F.1553). Skeletons 10230) and 10217) seem to have been buried relatively close in time to each-other, since a glass fragment found in grave F.1551 comes from a glass bottle found inside grave F.1552. The inventory of the grave F.1552 is a lot richer that that of the other ones, containing beside the glass bottle a ceramic unguentarium and a bone flute. The fifth grave we excavated, feature F.1557, was heavily eroded and contained no traces of wood or nails but by the skeleton's head we found a small ceramic cup oxidized fabric and one handle).

Building 47:

The next thing in sequence on the excavated area was Building 47. Because of its proximity to the surface, the structure we called Building 47 suffered from intense erosion and we didn't encounter the normal situation present in most of the other houses in Çatalhöyük where, at the abandonment, the walls were pushed inside the rooms to fill the space. When this happens we find the features within the house in a very good state of preservation, as well as the lower part of all the walls. The same sort of scenario might have taken place in the case of Building 47 Fig. 27), but over the centuries the erosion left us only with the very first courses of bricks and some of the lowermost features inside Space 237 the only space identified within Building 47). The state of preservation of the house varied across its layout, being better preserved on its southern and western sides while the northern wall was almost completely gone and the eastern wall was heavily truncated as it is set on the lowest side of the slope.

Figure 27: Plan of Building 47

Stratigraphically Building 47 postdates all the other structures in the area. It is clear though that even if all the buildings around were already demolished when these walls were erected, the distance in time between these two events is not such a long one. We can say that, because the walls of Building 47 were set directly on top of other walls from the buildings underneath, and the western wall F.1562 abuts the eastern wall of Space 227. This situation suggests that all these earlier structures were still visible at the date of the construction. Because the first bricks of the eastern walls of the building were set slightly lower then those of the western walls, we may conclude that the landscape was already sloping eastwards when these structures were erected.

Building 47 is oriented slightly off the N-S axis, i.e. NNE-SSW and it measures approximately eight meters N-S and six meters E-W, with the reserve that the northern wall is not accurately located, being almost completely eroded away. The other three walls were built with unusually large mudbricks made out of gray clay. The bricks dimensions and fabric are very different from everything that was previously found in this area of the site. The big gray bricks are placed in very shallow foundation cuts few centimeters only from place to place along the line of the walls, practice which is relatively uncommon in Çatalhöyük. There is more than one course preserved of the southern wall F.1563 and eastern wall F.1561 and red clay was used as bonding material. No plaster was found on any of the walls nor fallen in the space between them.

On the western side of the building a large raised platform was built together with the adjacent wall, using the same building material i.e. gray bricks bonded with red clay. We excavated three courses of bricks some of the lower ones placed in shallow foundation cuts and it became clear that the platform had at least two phases of construction, varying in size and outlay. We can say that, because the upper bricks, which correspond with an increase in dimension, seal a number of clay floors which were contemporary with the lower bricks of the platform. The platform (F.1562) has in the middle an empty space where there were no bricks. The function of this empty area is for the moment unclear.

The inner space (Space 237) of Building 47 was floored with white, gray and brown plaster in multiple parallel layers. The floors were poorly preserved and therefore, excavated more than one at the time. Samples were taken constantly. Space 237 has an “L” shape and it was organized as follows: at both southern and northern ends there are two raised areas platforms supported by two retaining mudbrick walls F.1558 south and F.1559 north, leaving the area between them at a lower level. All the plaster floors within the space seal the two platforms going up vertically next to the retaining walls.

Despite the advanced state of erosion, a few features inside Space 237 were preserved. Contemporary with the latest floors (10236) and (10244) was a storage bin built against the southern wall F. 1563. Feature F.1554 was a rectangular box built with grey mudbricks placed on one side and covered in white plaster. The bin was divided by one mudbrick in two square spaces, which were filled with large pottery shards and bones.

Figure 28: Building 47 with central oval hearth. Looking

In the middle of the lower area of Space 237 we found a very different kind of hearth/oven, from those found in most of the other houses on site (Fig 28). Feature F.1555 was an ovoid cut in the ground with traces of intense burning on the bottom and sides. The oven functioned contemporary with the lower floors of the space, (10246), (10243) and (10259), but it was out of use and backfilled before the upper floors were set in place, sealing it. The nature of the materials that the oven was backfilled with, might indicate that the structure had a clay cover over two thirds of it while the northern end was not covered and functioned as some sort of firing-chamber. There were traces of food remains within the fill of the covered area. The placement of the oven in the middle of the room and not against one of the walls, is also unusual for the site.

Figure 29: Outline of plaster ‘box'

On the southern raised area, a circular cut with vertical edges was dug. Because it is sealed by some of the white floors, it appears to have come in place at the early stages of the building's existence. On the flat bottom of the pit, a rectangular clay box was placed. Inside the fine gray walls of the box we found only a few unarticulated dog bones (Fig. 29).

Dating

The fact that Building 47 postdates all the other Neolithic structures in the area as well as the different nature of it and of the features within, were indications that we were dealing with a late structure. The question was how late? By the fact that the walls were built directly on top of earlier walls, suggesting that these later ones were still visible, we concluded that the time gap between them was not extremely large. The report of the worked stone specialist confirmed that Building 47 sticks out of the date range of the buildings around it. It was the pottery report that gave us a specific dating. The pottery indicates that Building 47 is to be dated between Levels IV and III but not later than Level III.

By the end of the 2004 season, Building 47 was completely recorded and excavated leaving the investigation of the earlier (Fig.30) houses in the area for the future seasons.

Figure 30: Earlier building outline after excavation of Building 47

Space 227

This space number was given to a room located west from Building 47, abutting its west wall (see Fig 27). In the 2004 season we excavated this space only partially due to the fact that the western half of it was outside the recently built tent. In the short time we allocated to the excavation of this area at the end of the season, we managed to completely remove the infill of the eastern half of the room and expose the features within (Fig. 31).

The three walls of the room were preserved up to more than a meter high in some parts and they all had plaster on them. It was obvious that there are several layers of white plaster on each of them, but the state of preservation was not very good, being already cracked at the moment of exposure.

The east wall of Space 227 (F.1565) was built against an earlier wall F.1569 and it appears that in the south-eastern corner of the room, a niche was created by using this earlier wall as the back of it. We have to leave a question mark though, because there is very little preserved of F.1569 and the niche, being truncated by the cut of a Byzantine grave. The south wall (F.1566) is preserved in its original vertical shape up to a reasonable height, as opposed to the north wall F.1564, which leans towards south and in some parts only a few centimeters of it are preserved. This last one too is truncated by Byzantine grave cuts.

Figure 31: Space 227. Looking North

In the northeastern corner of the room there is a square raised platform (F.1567) with vertical edges, covered in a greasy layer of greenish gray plaster. The platform is built against the north and the east walls and slopes in an angle of 30 degrees towards south. We can't say weather this slope is intentional or it is the result of pressure after the abandonment of the building. Perpendicular on the east wall of the room, half way between the edge of the platform and the south wall, there is an east-west bench approximately 0.3m wide. The bench is covered with plaster similar to that on the walls. There are shallow traces of red paint on the bench as well as on wall F.1565 in the area where it adjoins the bench. We can therefore assume that the bench and the wall were painted at least on some of the multiple plaster layers. The upper part of the bench was designed with small steps less than one centimeter high going down towards west. The red paint can be observed mostly on the vertical sides of these steps.

The areas between the platform, the bench and the walls are floored with the same greasy plaster as that on the platform. Judging from the preview given by some rodent tracks, we can say that there are more than one floor, but the exact number of them we will know only after further excavations. On the floor of the room we found a group of objects (10264) composed of obsidian fragments, worked stones, bones and worked bones. The main discovery within cluster (10264) is a marble statuette placed directly on the floor, proving that it was not part of the fill of the room, but left there together with the other objects before Space 227 was backfilled (Fig 32).

Between the abandonment of the building and the collapse of the walls, the Space 227 was kept for a while and used for other purposes. Witness to that is the layer of residues and coprolites (10265) covering the floor of the room, mainly at its northern end. The situation is not unique as a similar occurrence was found in Building 2, Level IX, South Area, as was the gradual filling of the room, used now for rubbish disposal. This is how we explain the presence in the infill of a large number of animal bones. Most of these were spread all over the thick layers of fill units (10266), (10260), (10205), but there were also some higher concentrations of bones in some parts of the room. When encountered in other areas of the site, these clusters of bones were interpreted as results of some sort of feasting events and this is probably the case in Space 227 as well.

Figure 32: Figurine 10264.x1

A rather unusual discovery within the fill of the room was an articulated skeleton of an infant (10267), Feature F.1570. This was placed tucked under an overhang on the north wall of the building, not in a grave cut. It was found to be lying on a thin layer of organic debris, coprolite or possibly food debris (10265) and ‘buried' with the same debris that filled the rest of the room (Fig. 33)

Figure 33: Skeleton (10267) tucked under a wall overhang

Among the numerous animal bones contained by the infill, few fragments of unarticulated human bones were found. The only explanation for them is that they were carried together with the earth brought from somewhere else. Space 227 seems to have been backfilled starting at its northern end. As a result of that, all the fills slope southwards.

The western half of the room is to be excavated in the future seasons.