J6

The Eastern End of the Plaza and the Betili (Version 1a) [remove the red font color]
J2 Introduction / Topics

Mittani Brickfall

Federico Buccellati – September 2009

Unit J6 is located south of J4 and East of J2. The most important result of this unit was in the new understanding of the duration of the Mittani sequence at Tell Mozan. Since the brickfall ^bf1 and ^bf2 are dated to the Mittani period by the pottery (mKB), and since these go under the even Mittani levels seen in J2 and J1, they must reflect the early Mittani period. Thus the brickfall in J6 comes from a building or buildings used in the early Mittani period, during which the plaza JP was still kept clean. This brickfall seems to come from the East or South-East of unit J6, since to the North in J4 no significant brickfall levels were found, and to the West the amount of brickfall diminishes the farther from J6 it gets. The brickfall contains several human bones, especially in J7 (lR) but these bones are not articulated and thus seem not to stem from a primary burial context. This would then also exclude the fact that the persons died in the brickfall itself. This then raises the question as to the function of the building from which the brickfall originated: while this is much more difficult without the floor accumulations, some hypotheses can be made. Because of its vicinity to the Temple Terrace, it is likely that the structure or structures were in some way linked functionally to the temple. Additionally, the fact that it borders on the plaza with the temple terrace increases its relative importance within the urban landscape. However, the results from J6 would indicate that the revetment wall continues from the staircase north of the walls J4f129 J4f130, and runs East and then presumeably angles North. This means that the structure or structures from which the brickfall originates were located outside of the temple terrace wall. This structure is still founded considerably higher than the plaza level, when we consider the elevation of the accumulation on which the brickfall fell. This means that, while the revetment wall is presumeably North of the structure or structures, there is still a sharp difference in elevation between the accumulations in front of the J2 staircase and those to the East of the brickfall. This difference is attested, for now, only in the Mittani period, but it makes sense that this difference is a reflection of an earlier Eastern boundary to the plaza JP. A further piece of the puzzle regarding this Eastern boundary to the Plaza is f24 in k100. This wall is covered in material which contains EDIII seal impressions, giving us a firm ante-quem date, and the material and method of construction recall the revetment wall. It appears that the face of the wall f24 is to the south, and that on the north side there is no distinct face. This indicates that the wall is a type of revetment wall against an earthen fill or previous accumulation. The N-S running wall f26 seems to be the Eastern boundary to f24, giving a corner which does not clearly fit into the morphology of the plaza as we now understand it. This construction could be part of the entrance to the plaza from the SE, where we presume a city gate is located, or it could be part of the access to the structures lining the East of the plaza.

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