J6

The Eastern End of the Plaza and the Betili (Version 1a)

J6 Synthetic View / Stratigraphy

Emplacement for Unit J6

Patrizia Camatta – August 2010, December 2024

Principles

A discussion and explanation of how stratigraphy works within the Urkesh Global Record can be found in the grammar. In this section main features are described as they were found, avoiding interpretations of function, typology and chronology, which are discussed under deposition and typology. Emplacement is the static aspect of stratigraphy, it explains how things are in the ground at the moment of they are exposed. It aims to observe, document and describe all elements we find during excavation. The defining criterion is the orientation of the components, the way the elements appear to us when seen in place. On this basis we can distinguish different elements: surfaces, build-up, amorphous amassment and ordered aggregation.

Elements

Topsoil

Topsoil is the upper ca. 20 cm of the Tell surface. It is characterized by being a dusty soil including roots, stones but also some pottery and modern material. A good exaple of topsoil is f5.

Layering or gradual build-up

Accumulations are the gradual build-up of debris and material due to human activity and, to some extent, the precipitation of natural debris such as dust and sand. For definition an accumulation is bounded by at least one wall and we can observe elements such as pottery sherds and small stones or pebbles, ash and organic particles with a horizontal angle of repose. In J6, 46% of the features excavated are accumulations, with a total of 163 elements within a total of 347. The upper 2 m of J6 were accumulations, interrupted by floors, amorphous amassments or layers. We recorded different types of accumulations. Accumulations due to the process resulting from human activities and natural accumulations. During excavation is not always possible to give the correct definition, therefore we often used the general definition accumulation, or we had to change the definition to define better its nature. The list of all accumulations can be found in typological index. In this section is given a summary of the most important ones.

1. accumulation ^a1: The upper layers (aouth 2 meters) directly found unter the topsoil are characterized by the presence of small rooths, small stones and some pottery and animal bones. Few q-items were found in these accumulations. The soil is brown and soft, the elements contained in it form an inert matrix. The area is abandoned, the elements present in this accumulation such as pottery and objects are washed down from other parts of the tell.
2. accumulation ^a1

Amorphous amassment

The elements that define a feature as amourphous amassment is the random alignment of inclusions. The collapse of a building, the dump of material in a pit are examples of this category. More than 10% of the features excavated in J6 belong to this category.

Dump

With ^dump1 the matrix of the features changes drastically. Within the features included in ^dump1 we observed the masive presence of pebbles, animal bones, large stones and pottery sherds. The dump was found in all the southern portion of J6 (k65, k74, k75, k84, k85, k86, k87).

A second dump in J6 is represented by ^dump2. It includes f200, f306 and f293, characterized by a soft red soil with ash lenses and a large presence of pottery, clay lumps with seal impressions, tannur peaces, objects, bones, and kilin waste. This dump was found directly unter pit f192 and covered wall f227 and glacis f300 (see also section w206)

^dump2

Fill

Four pits were excavated in J6. In this section are described the fills. For the pit cut see section below “cut”.

f87	fill of a small round pit f92 cutting the brickfall. The pit was filled with a soft and fine brown reddish soil with pottery sherds.
f142	is the fill of pit cut f122. The soil was soft, grey and ashy with several almost horizontal layers. It contained a large quantity of sherds, some complete vessels and animal bones and a small jar i11, seal impression q231.2 and sealing i12. It cuts the brown reddish layer f151.
f192	The large pit f199 was filled with different layers of reddish brown, brown and gray soil. The soil was soft and sligtly wet and ashy. The soil contained a proper amount of carbon, animal bones, a broken tannur f220, a large amount of pottery, roofing material, bricks, kilin waste, lithic and clay artefacts. Pit f282 removed the norther portion of the fill.
f282	The fill of cut f283 is similar to fill f192. Is a brown wet soil with some roofing material, tannur peaces and some pottery sherds.

Collapse

A collapse of one or more buildings comes from east of J6 and covers almost all J6 and the lower portion of J2. The boundaries of the brickfall are sharp and defined, especially the bottom of it, which is bonded by ^glacis1. The glacis slopes toward south-west and while to the west there is an open free space (the plaza), the brickfall spread to the west and was not blocked. The matrix of the brickfall is well defined: the lower portion bf2 is about 1,5- m thick, consists mainly of complete to broken mud bricks, while the topmost portion bf1 is about 1 m thick and consists of melted mud bricks, due to its longer exposure to wind and water. See expecially section w300.

Ordered aggregation

pattererned organization of components, along a horizontal and a vertical axis

Walls

bin walls
terrace walls

Escarpment

^glacis3 and ^glacis4, layed east of ^wall6. It is a thick band (50 cm to 2 meters thick and found for a length of 13 meters) of amorphous material, with a characteristich red-orange coloration, due to the source of the earth (coming outside the city, where still today the earth has a red coloration). Characteristics of this feature is the presence of lot of mud bricks. Its surface was well defined and visible for a long time.

Glacis

Horizontal surfaces

compaction or juxtaposition along a single plane

Cut

Four pits were excavated in J6. The fills are described above.

1. A small round pit f92, about one Meter in diameter, cuts the brickfall f92. The pit was filled with f87.
f142.
2. f122 cut into f151 and filled with f142. The pit has a Northeast-Southwest orientation, is about 1,60 m long, 0,67 m wide and about 80 cm deep. The remaining part of the pit was excavated as J4f136.
3. The oval pit cut f199 is Nort-South oriented and is 6 m long and 3,60 m wide for a depth of about 30-50 cm. It cuts dump f200, glacis f192 and wall f227. The pit is filled with ashy soil f192.
4. f283 is 1,5 m in diameter about 30 cm in depth, filled with f282. It cuts pit fill f192 and glacis f275.

J6