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Season 2015

Excavation results of the Spanish-Italian expeditions

During the forth campaign of the Spanish-Italian expedition to Jebel al-Mutawwaq (May 2015) Area C was enlarged to the north of Dolmen 534 and to the west of the Great Enclosure.In the northern part of the large open courtyard L. 21, yet identified near Building C in 2014, a storage area was discovered: several jars, two well preserved, have been settled inside niches carved directly above the bedrock and arranged in a line running east-west. The vessels discovered are storage jars, with loop and ledge handles. Some small stone walls, not yet investigated, are visible on the surface to the north of the rock carved niches, perhaps pertaining to a covering structure of the storage area. To the south of the courtyard and 1.5 meters below, a street has been excavated. This is characterized of two different layer of use, both dated to the Early Bronze Age I. The oldest concerns the use of the bedrock as floor level, well leveled in order to be perfectly flat. After a few centimeter of earth deposition, the floor level has been raised with stone pebbles (a method identified also in many houses of the contemporary settlement) and a layer of compact earth (visible only in some point of the excavation trench) was identified. All the area was then covered by the huge collapse layer of large stones which are related to the southern wall of the northern courtyard.To the east of courtyard L. 21 another structure has been discovered and excavated.

 

A stone wall pertaining to this building was yet visible on the surface at the beginning of the campaign. During the excavation it become clear that the wall, built with large stone blocks, was relative to the first phase of use of a large building. In this phase the structure, named House 131, has a apsidal plan, with a north-south orientation, and a main large door on the western wall, with two stone slewing bearing, opening toward Courtyard L. 21. Moreover, on the southern side of the building two circular installation of around 1.5 meter of diameter has been excavated. These installation had a border made of two rows of stones and were filled with small pebbles, well leveled to obtain flat circular platforms used probably for food processing. In a second phase, the first floor of House 131 was raised and two small internal stone walls were built to obtain small rooms, one in the northern apsidal end of the house and the other on the eastern side of the building, partially covering one of the circular installation, clearly not used anymore.The third operation of the 2015 campaign was the enlargement of Area C East inside the large structure denominated Great Enclosure; here in 2014 an internal circular structure has been identified. The excavations clarify the method of construction of the great wall of the enclosure: the wall is built with two rows of large stone blocks, directly above the bedrock, in the inner side some layers of other stone blocks, pushed directly again the wall support the whole structure. This method of construction involve a large quantity of people to be realized, clearly indicating the importance of this space for the village of Jebel al-Mutawwaq. Some few sherds identified in the foundation of the wall are all dated to the Early Bronze Age I Period.

 

In the other squares excavated inside the Great Enclosure the low stratigraphy (the bedrock was just few centimeters above the surface level) did not permit till now more interpretation of the structure.Finally in May 2015, thanks to the agreement with the CSIC of Spain, in the week between 15th and 22th May a geophysical prospection has been done at one of the northern terrace of Jebel al-Mutawwaq. This works has been performed by the geophysicists M. Monik and Z. Lendakowa of the University of Olomouc (Czech Republic), in order to have new data from the area analyzed (15.5 x 15.5 meters) with the underground penetrating rad.

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06123 Perugia (PG)
+39 0755851


 

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