Early Walls in the Plaza

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Early Walls

The deepest excavated stone architecture in all JP is located in Unit J1, 7 m under the topsoil (at 8500m) under EDII levels. See also chronology and constructional history. These walls may represent an early version of the revetment wall.

wall6 is located in the Plaza in Unit J1, directly south of wall5, the EDIII Revetment Wall, 10 cm deeper than the first course of wall5, while maintaining the same orientation as this wall. wall6 consists of two stone walls, bounded and set perpendicular to each other. The western wall runs in a south-west, north-east direction and is for the excavated portion 4.45 m long, one stone wide and 6 courses high for a preserved maximal height of 1.5 m. The northern wall runs from north-west to south-east and is 4.55 m long for the exposed portion. Consisting of six courses, the wall has a maximum height of 1.55 metres and is only one stone wide. The first course consists of large stone blocks set on top of mudbricks (Pl. 22b). The walls are not straight, but lean against the soil. The back of the walls is irregular, i.e. the visible face is the southern and eastern side. The walls lean against the soil, which indicates that they were constructed after the soil was laid down. This means they have a retaining function and are not freestanding. The walls are built from large, rectangular undressed stones set in irregular courses. The joints are uneven and filled with a mixture of mud, mortar and small stones. The walls have partly collapsed, as can be seen in the northern part of the western wall and the eastern part of the northern wall. Several large stones, probably from the collapse of JPw7, were found during the excavations in front of the walls, which suggests that the walls were originally much higher.

LC3 wallsin J1

wall7 is a wall segment located directly under JPw6 in unit J5 (Pl. 20). It is a stone wall with a north-west, south-east orientation. The visible portion is 0.40 m in height (at least 2 courses high) and 0.50 m in width. It runs almost straight for 4.40 m, and consists of at least two medium stones set next to each other. The wall has a slightly different orientation from JPw6. The stones of JPw8 are angular and parallelepiped in form with the flat face showing on the visible side, so that the wall appears ordered and similar to JPw13. The joints are narrow and filled with mud mortar and small stones. Escarpment JPe2 touches the first visible western stone (Pl. 20b). The wall continues to the east under earth escarpment JPe3 (Pl. 20d). JPw8 can be the eastern continuation of JPw13, which at a certain moment collapsed and was rebuilt as JPw6 or JPw8 is, similar to JPw7, related to a previous situation of the Temple Terrace.