Installations in Unit A6

Amer Ahmad – July 2023

Synopsis

TEXT TO BE WRITTEN

Discussion

TEXT TO BE WRITTEN

Storage and trash pits

The 4th phase in the unit A6 is attested by the crumbling of the palace in addition to several pits, the pits were going through the accumulations of the 3rd phase of the occupation in the palace, the contents show us incoherent and constituted of pure trash, red dirt, (bones, sherds, ashes, weapon) so it is clear that they had a trash function in the f29, f161, f320 and f325.

Pit graves

Three pit graves were used during 4th phase; they were considered pit graves because of their contents, where they yielded many sherds, bones, and skulls, two of them are in irregular shape, but one of them was oval (f322), with length oriented N-S. Fairly shallow, about 10-12 cm deep.

Built-up burials

In addition to the pits, there are some tombs that were considered as built-up burials, they have no specific shapes only some bricks that indicate a build and are visible on 3 sides (a18) with several materials such as a large metal arrowhead, a metal pin, and two jars, and did not contain a complete skeleton but the parts that remained were reddish and very fragile and powdery. Another tomb with a fetal position is attested (a12), there is brick surrounding the skeleton and one “bronze” bracelet is present on each hand also a large jar is touching the toes, with no specific shape except brick and hard packing underneath and the burial itself merged completely with the surrounding accumulation and no cut leading to it was discernible.

Shelves

Vault a1 is considered a Closet in the service quarter in the Akkadian period, inside this Closet a line of bricks (f146) going along the N and W walls was found, this line is the best evidence of the shelves in the palace at the end of 3rd millennium BC.

Tannurs

Several tannurs were found in A6, but many of them were in bad condition, most of them discovered in the later accumulations of the functional use of the palace, and sherd, dust, ash, and much less of its walls indicate to them (f335). The best shape of the tannurs is (f356) the walls of the tannur are like baked brick in color and hardness. It is double-walled and built directly on the floor surface as opposed to being set within the floor of room a100 and as a part of the palace installations in the Akkadian period, it also leads us to think about the importance of the cooking installations and its link with the spatial privacy of the organization.

Hearts

On the other hand, the crumbling phase of the palace (4th phase) provided us with a hearth (f104) found in not orderly accumulation and linked to a handiron with rocks and sherds in the bottom. Another rectangular hearth (f376) was found on the floor of the a100, it was identical to the tannur and rests on a bed of accumulation and ash of the AK palace period.

Bathroom

Room C6 yielded a paradigm of the AK building drainage system, it was an impressive bathroom (f74) the top was rather carefully laid with baked bricks, and the drain takes water out of the building towards the SE through the doorway (a2), this upslope in terms of the present profile of the mound, and to some extent, it may have been the same in antiquity.