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Walls
Unit J6 is defined by three stone walls built during the EDIII period: the northern part is limited by the retaining wall f218, f219 and the western part by the staircase flank wall f129.
f219 is the eastern enclosure of the Temple Terrace. This wall is structurally different than the revetment wall in J3, therefore is here named retaining wall. In J3 the revetment wall was built cutting the existing LC mound and its back was filled with LC material (see for this topic J3). In J6, the wall begins directly to the east of the monumental staircase and continues in an east-west direction for about 9m, before bending nothwards. The wall was built at the same time as the staircase and the rest of the Temple Terrace Complex, to enclose the mound. A mudbrick glacis was exposed directly north of the wall (see section Typology and Bianchi et al. 2014, Beilage 1 [to be added in MEL - ZJ710pC]). So I asume the fuction of the wall is to retain the mudbrick glacis behind.
Another wall f227 runs 5m south and is parallel to wall f219. This wall is located at a much lower level. Its functions is to screen the accumulations growing from the south in the Plaza. As we were not able to expose the wall to its base, it is possible that wall f227 dates from an earlier period than f219. There is unsufficient data to draw conclusions.
The third wall is f129 which flanks for all the length the east side of the staircase (in J2) and is built on top of the slope of the mound. The wall is built against the staircase (v57). Since the wall flanks all the staircase it is logical that they were built together. ^wall6 abuts the retaining wall on its southern face (v233).
Wall f201 is a row of stones built in the Mittani period, following the same orientation of wall f227 (v255). Since f227 was covered by accumulations at the time of the construction of wall f201, it is difficult to see the same function of the two walls, but rather a coincidence. The function of this wall remains unclear as for wall f84, which is also a row of stones.
On top of wall f201 is built the bin a7. Its mudbrick walls use the stones of f201 as base (v165a). The bin is a half moon shaped small structure which was found empty but probably had storage purposes.
There is a large mudbrick wall in the western part of J6 which is f166 running north-south. Only a small part of this wall was exposed and remains totally unclear its function and date. It should be dated to the late third millennium.
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We recorded several construction moments:
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1. Evidence of early structure: A small evidence of construction is attested by a piece of a mudbrick wall under the revetment and staircase walls. We can date this wall before the EDIII. The presence of similar structures in other JP units under the main construction phase of the Temple Terrace and dated by extensive excavations, let us to date this wall to the LC 3 Period (phase 2m).
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2. Mayor construction: there is a main building phase at the Temple Terrace, attested in all JP Area. This phase is coherent and well dated to the EDIII period from typological analysis of the materials found in the strata covering it (phase 3m). We have the construction of the monumental staircase and revetment wall, in J6 represented by the staircase flank wall the retaining wall and wall f227, in the foto to the right marked in red.
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3. Intervention on walls: in terms of deposition there is an intervention on the stone walls, cosisting on dumping material on the exposed sides of the walls. Typologically we infer to this layers to glacis. The earliest glacis f300 is found south of revetment wall during phase 3m. Other glacis are found abutting the eatern face of the flank staircase wall. These are glacis 6, glacis 3 (laid during the end of the Third Millennium) and glacis 5, glacis 2 and glacis 1, laid during the mittani period.
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4. Modification phase: the staircase wall was modified in the middle of mittani phase 7f. A row of stones (marked in blue in the drawing) was placed on top of the wall. The stones are larger than the lower ones. There is a thicker layer of mortar between the stones.
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Pits
The process of excavating a pit is a deliberate and planned human activity. In the field, we document the absence of volume in the feature removed from the pit as a negative interface (Carandini 1991 [to be added in MEL - ZJ709 pC], 73 ff.). In J6 there are two large hollow pits very similar in typology (they are both not deep but very large) and fills. In the foto below to the left is evident the negative interface of pit cut f199 left in f164. The cut is quite large and removed a discrete quantity of the red bricky soil of f164 during phase 5c. ^pit2 is a hollow cutting several mittani strata, filled with ashy earth, charcoal and a lot of pottery (f142). The fill dates to phase 7c. Both pits were located directly east of ^wall6 when the staircase was used and fully visible.
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Floors
In J6 there are several floors in the plaza, directly south of the staircase flank wall, which are associated with the use of the main entrance to the Temple Terrace during the EDIII to the Akkadian periods ( phase 3p until phase 4m). These floors consist of compacted earth and sherds resulting from the continuous walking by of people. Some of these floors are equal to those in J2. The lowest floor is f312 a floor related to the first step of the staircase and abuts the two large betili. This floor is covered by floor f303. A thin accumulation separates another sequence of floors (f277, f273, f271, f184, f154). At this point the first three steps of the staircase are not visible and half of the betili are covered.
A second series of floors is recorded at a much higher elevation and dates to Mittani( phase 7c to phase 7f). These floors are related to the use of the entire area to the east of the staircase wall. During this time there is a gradual slope to allow people to walk up. The glacis is a hard, compact surface (glacis1, glacis2), interrupted by sherd floors (floor2).
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