Depositional data for Unit J6

Patrizia Camatta – September 2011, July 2025

Introduction

If in the section emplacement was described the static aspect of stratigraphy, in this section is described the dynamic aspect, which is not observable, but it is rather based on inference from observations of emplacement. Deposition is the way in which things got in the ground and depositional history describes the process.
Unit J6 has a coplex deposition due to a height difference of 5 m between the northern parts and the southern one within a length of about 10 m. This causes the presence of the earliest strata and structures being found at a high elevation to the north in the Third Millennium. There is a faster growth of accumulations to the south, in the plaza, where horizontal surfaces are interrupted by a gradual build-up in form of accumulations. The buffer zone between the horizontal layering and the slope starts at the beginning of staircase flank wall. The same slope is visible under under the flank wall. During the Akkadian period a thick band of red earth and melted bricks was laid east of the east staircase flank wall, to protect it from erosion. This ‘glacis’ followed the slope of the underlying surfaces. Several floors were found overlaying the glacis and abutting the betili. This was an intensively used area due to its proximity to the staircase and plaza. Floors date from the EDIII period to the early Mittani period.
During the Mittani period, the slope is moderate and uniform in all the unit, covered with hard surfaces (glacis) interrupted by sherd floors. The floors are found in all J6 and these are related to structures. One of this structure is a bin. After a while a large building collapses and covers all the area, and afterwards there are no floors or structures found here, but only natural accumulations.
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Depositional categories

In chapter emplacement we distinguished the elements we recorded into following groups: ordered aggregation (walls), horizontal surfaces (floors), amourphous amassment (collapse, fill) and gradual build-up (accumulations). In terms of deposition, ordered aggregation implies construction, which is an intentional building process resulting in the coherent organisation of volumes (floors, walls). Another intentional process is discard, which is a planned release of mass (a fill of a pit or a dump). In contrast, unintentional process include accretion (gradual build up) and disaggregation (collapse, erosion).

Construction

We recorded several construction moments:

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).

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 and walls wall 12 and f227.

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.

Discard

fill, dump

Accretion

accumulation