Depositional data for Unit J6
Construction

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Floors

In J6 there are several floors in the plaza, directly south of the staircase flank ^wall6 and associated to the use of the main entrance to the Temple Terrace. These floors consist of compacted earth and sherds made by the continuous walking by of people. A few of this floors are equal to J2 ones. The lowest is f312 a floor related to the first step of the staircase and abutting the two large oblique stones of ^wall6. This floor is covered by f303, similar to f312. 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 obelisks are covered. A second series of floors are recorded at a much higher elevation and are later in date. These floors are related to the use of the entire area east of the flank ^wall6. Any marked slope is recorded in this period and people can walk up to the Revetment Wall. The glacis are intentionally laid hard compact surfaces (^glacis1, ^glacis2), interrupted by sherd floors only found in small patches ^floor2.

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Walls

Unit J6 is defined by two large stone walls built during the early EDIII period: the northern part is limited by the Revetment Wall and the western part by the staircase flank wall (v227).

The Revetment Wall ^wall12 is the terrace wall. There is evidence in J3 that it was built cutting the existing mound. The wall in J3 there is at least 1.50 m wide and 3 m high (J1). The thickness and the height of the Revetment Wall is not clear in J6. It starts directly east of the staircase and continues with an east-west orientation for about 9 m, when it bends to the north. In J6 the Revetment Wall is built from large and medium undressed stones set in regular courses. The wall was build at the same time as the staircase and the rest of the Temple Terrace Complex, to enclose the mound and give access to it in function of the temple. There is another wall parallel to the Revetment Wall (f227) and 5 m to the south. This is much lower since there is the slope, but it was probably built contemporary to the Revetment Wall. It functions as screen of the accumulations growing from the south and also terracing the slope. Another possibility is that f227 was the Revetment Wall during the earliest phase of the Temple Terrace and in a later moment was built ^wall12. There are not sufficient data to make conclusions.

Another important wall is ^wall6 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. It is still unclear if the wall was built at the same time as the staircase and as the Revetment Wall. The contact association is that the wall is built against the staircase and there is no evidence of bonding between the two structures (v57). Since the wall flanks all the staircase it is logical that they were built together. ^wall6 abuts the Revetment Wall on its southern face (v233).

Wall f201 is a row of stones 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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Pits

In J6 there are two large hollow pits very similar in typology (they are both not deep but very large) and fills. ^pit2 is filled with ashy earth, charcoal and a lot of pottery (f142). The fill dates to Mittani and it cuts Mittani strata (f151). The second is ^pit3, a larger hollow, cutting Akkadian (f164) and EDIII strata (f314), filled with Late Third millennium pottery and ashy earth with charcoal (f192). Both pits were located directly east of ^wall6 when the staircase was used and fully visible.