EXCAVATION SUMMARY
We, Ben Sullivan and Dan Leon, began excavation north of Nezi Field in the area previously excavated in the 1960s under the direction of H.S. Robinson, in the area immediately to the south of the Byzantine Courtyard House on 30 March and finished 16 April. Our objective was to bring two of these rooms (the room bounded by walls [5552] [N], 5553 [E], 5403 [S] and 5483 [W] and the room bounded by walls 5553, 5341, 10085/10078 and 10070/10077) down to Middle and Late Byzantine levels, to clarify the chronology and phasing of the walls in the area and in addition to excavate the baulks left as martyrs by the 1960s excavations on the N and S of foundation 5552 and to the E of wall 5553 in order to establish a stratigraphic relationship between the two rooms and the area N of them. Working on the assumption that walls 5553 and 5552 cut an earlier, larger Byzantine room bounded by walls 5403, 5483, 5631, and an as yet undetermined wall to the E, our initial objective in this area was to remove walls 5553 and 5552 in order to begin the process of revealing this earlier room.
See the summary of Anne Feltovich, Catherine Person, and Emily Rush from the 2008 excavation season for the chronology of the earlier room.
We worked under the supervision of Guy Sanders (director of excavation) and Alicia Carter (field supervisor). Our pickman was Panos Kakouros, our wheelbarrow and sieve operators were Takis Papaioannou, Vangelis ?, Kleomenis Didaskalou, and Tasos Kakouros.
The following summary documents the findings of the first Session of the 2009 excavation season in the two rooms which we excavated. We first treat each room individually, then based on these conclusions relate the two rooms to each other and finally relate them to the excavations in the area N of Nezi as a whole. In what follows we refer to the Room Bounded by Walls 5552, 5553, 5403 and 5483 as “the Western Room” and the Room Bounded by Walls 5553, 5341, 10085/10078 and 10070/10077 as “the Eastern Room.” Please note that Joanna Potenza and Ryan Boehm, who excavated a closely related area, refer to “the Eastern Room” as “the Western Room.”
THE WESTERN ROOM
The latest structure in this area is superstructure 5922, dated by pottery to the Post-Medieval period, though with no precise date. This superstructure is not associated with any remaining floors, but is built upon wall foundation 5552, which dates to the Frankish period (2nd half of 13th century or later) and is contemporary with wall 5553, the wall with a threshold leading into the Eastern Room. The Frankish walls cut a series of middle and late Byzantine floors showing a pattern of similar construction methods, namely the use of leveling fill composed of assorted rubbish (broken tiles, ceramics, animal bones, etc.) followed by the imposition of a packed earth surface. This pattern thus seems to indicate that the inhabitants continued following a similar process in the construction of their floors in this area through the middle and late Byzantine periods. Beneath one of these floors (6035/6088), we discovered a small section of a cross wall on an E-W orientation, cutting the room into an even smaller space than the later foundation 5552. This cross wall (6025) is dated stratigraphically to the late 11th or early 12th century (or later), and was incorporated into the construction of floor 6035/6088. An even earlier floor (6123/6124/6127) was cut by the construction of a N-S rubble wall, abutting the south wall of the room (5403). The purpose of this wall and its usefulness for the contemporary inhabitants is not entirely clear, since no associated floors or contemporary structures have been found. The same floor (6123/6124/6127) was built upon a surprisingly ashy layer of dumped fill. The ash seems to be concentrated in an area against the (as yet unnamed) eastern wall of the room and spread out across the leveling fill for the floor, so we suspect that some ashy rubbish was dumped in that area during the leveling phase of construction and raked away to help provide the contemporary inhabitants with an even surface for the construction of their floor. We have not reached the original floor level in this area.
THE EASTERN ROOM
The northern boundary of this room was formed by threshold 5919 and associated walls 10076/10077. These contexts (excavated by Joanna Potenza and Ryan Boehm) date to the Frankish period (late 13th century). The post-and-lintel doorway granting access to the Eastern Room may be contemporary with foundation wall 5552 and its associated superstructure (5922) forming the northern boundary of the Western Room, and as with the Western Room, no contemporary floors or other associated structures survived to the south of its northern boundary. However, Potenza and Boehm documented a contemporary floor (5920) in the room to the north of the Eastern Room. Beneath the Frankish threshold and walls was a series of late Byzantine floors cut by the deep foundations of the piers flanking the Frankish threshold. These floors showed a similar construction technique to the ones built in the Western Room, and revealed a pattern of similar construction methods, namely the use of leveling fill composed of assorted rubbish (broken tiles, ceramics, animal bones, etc.) followed by the imposition of a packed earth surface. In terms of human action over time, this pattern thus seems to indicate that the inhabitants followed a similar process in the construction of their floors in this area through the middle and late Byzantine periods. Two robbing trenches dated to the early 12th cut different areas of this room. Robbing trench 6048 cuts the floors at the northern end of the room, while robbing trench 6012 cuts a lens of soil against the western end of the room. At the bottom of robbing trench 6012 was a small wall (6027) running N-S and dividing the earlier room. Though these robbing trenches seem to be contemporary, we were not able to make a stratigraphic connection between the two lenses cut by them.
CONCLUSIONS
Our two rooms appear to be part of the same structure, built in the middle Byzantine period and in use continuously (or repeatedly) throughout later periods up to the Frankish period, as attested by the wide array of cross walls subdividing the earlier room. The middle Byzantine building may have been founded upon a Late Antique structure of more or less the same orientation (as evidenced by wall 6120 revealed under foundation 5552). Walls 5552 and 5553 can now be confidently dated to the Frankish period, mid 13th century or later. However, the superstructure of foundation 5552 has a pottery date of Post-Medieval NPD (the latest attested usage phase for this structure), which would suggest that the foundation itself and the contemporary wall 5553 are also Post-Medieval, though it is nevertheless possible that the superstructure either was built later or replaced an earlier superstructure.