J6

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

J6 Synthetic View / Typology / Built Environment

Loose materials in Unit J6

Patrizia Camatta – September 2011, April 2025

Loose materials are accumulations and fills bounded by structures and installations. They fill a defined space or cover these structures. The definition and explanation of this concept can be found in the grammar. In J6 we have accumulations, fills of pits, dumps, the collapse of stones and the collapse of one or several mudbrick structures.

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Accumulations

The structures and installations we discovered in J6 were covered by accumulations. The first 2m are windblown soil accumulations with stones collapsed from the structures of the Temple Terrace. The area is abondoned.
The second type of accumulation is the soil that gathered through the Plaza during the Mittani period, in a short period of time, when the Temple Terrace, the Plaza and the houses to the south of the Plaza were intensively used and the soil grew faster (for this topic see Plaza in Unit J1). The accumulations during this period are interrupted by floors, structures and installations. See layering or gradual build-up for a description of the accumulations in terms of emplacement.
During the Third Millennium the Plaza was kept cleaner. We encounter in J6 south of the eastern staircase flank wall a sereis of floors covered by thin accumulations.

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Fills

The pits we found east of the staircase wall were possibly storage pits, trash pits or ritual pits. Their function remains uncertain. The fill of a8 and pit2 contained a lot of trash and the soil was loose and ashy. The fill of a1 was a loose soil with few pottery sherds and broken bricks.

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Layers

Ash layers

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Dumps


TEXT TO BE WRITTEN

There are two dumps: the first in time sequence is a dump of early EDIII sherds and kiln waste f200. The second happened in the mittani period and is ^dump1.

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Collapse

Several stones collapsed from the Revetment Wall, when the area was abandoned. The stones were found all directly south of the wall and are f212, f263, f254, f245, f244, f225, f224.

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The great brickfall


TEXT TO BE WRITTEN

A great Brickfall f1 and f2 covered all the J6 and J2 areas.

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