Area G

Alexander Sollee, M.A.

House G 1
The second season of excavation in Area G revealed further parts of the partly excavated Neo-Assyrian house (Fig. 1). Probably, a courtyard lay south of the representative room G 1:A. The latter, partially excavated in 2009, measured about 15 × 5 m. Eastwards, a door led to room G 1:C from where one could reach room G 1:D, but this doorway was blocked later on.

In rooms G 1:C and G 1:D we found great amounts of burnt material. In the former, we found an inventory of broken vessels, parts of which must have fallen down from a higher story (Fig. 2). The complete dockets (TH10G-152 & TH10G-173) with Aramaean inscription, recovered from the burnt material, date the destruction of the building to the end of the 7th century B.C.

So far, we know of two phases of the building (G04a & G04b). The walls of the older one are built of red mudbricks with gray joints. In the younger phase (G04a), a large room, comparable to G 1:A was divided into rooms G 1:C and G 1:D by the construction of two walls made of light mudbricks (Fig. 3). The end of Phase G 4a came with the fire mentioned earlier.

North of building G 1 a sounding was opened to investigate the stratigraphy of the lower town. Here, the first two campaigns have shown that beneath the buildings of level G04 lies another building level which dates back to the Neo-Assyrian period, as well, which is indicated by the few recovered sherds. When and why the structure of settlement was altered, is not clear yet.

House G 2
In another trench, a room belonging to a second building (G 2) was discovered. Its strategraphic position and manner of construction is similar to house G 1 and it probably also belongs to level G 4. Because of the stone floor, room G 2:A may have been a courtyard. This is supported by the drain leading eastwards (Fig. 4).

In both buildings, mudbrick box graves were built in Post-Assyrian times. The bricks for the graves were removed from the still standing parts of the Assyrian walls. So far, none of the graves has produced dateable finds, but as a working hypothesis we assume that they were built during the Hellenistic period.

Outlook
In the following campaigns, buildings G 1 and G 2 are to be further investigated, in order to recover more room inventories and to establish the layouts and building sequences. The main focus will lie on further excavating the sounding, in order to find out more about the stratigraphy of the lower town

(Translation: A. Sollee / B. Sollee)