As my (albeit abbreviated) second week on the site came to a close, I still have no clue what’s going on. Given our unit’s lovely wall fall composition, our finds have mostly consisted of dirt, mortar, and rocks. Of course, we retain best practice, slowly brushing away our layers of rubble as they continue to be profoundly rubble. Nevertheless, in my bountiful hubris, I will venture to make a (mostly) uneducated guess about our unit! If I had to go out on a (no doubt amputated) limb, I would say that the baulks that form my unit are ruined doors leading down along the adjacent unit 6D’s potential stair feature. In a warm climate like Antiochia has, it makes sense to descend near the entrance, capturing heat in the higher portions of the home, leaving potential rooms and living quarters below cooler than the surrounding air. Of course, until we finish excavating the eastern baulk, we have no way of knowing for sure if the feature in unit 6D is actually a stairwell or just a strange divot.
My questions about the unit are less about our work specifically and more about the overall construction of the site as a whole. As we continue excavating our baulks, whether or not we find a plaster floor as in adjacent units will, I think, provide some useful context to my above prediction. Based on a potential flooring, I wonder if the house might have an upstairs landing area around units 6D and 8A with a staircase snaking along the semicircular feature to the east leading downstairs, or if these are relatively isolated (maybe later?) rooms. Given our relative paucity of specific finds (ceramics, glass, etc.), I think my interest has tended more towards housing design than any specific material specialty. Our houses can say so much about the lives we lead and the values we hold that I find myself more attracted to the broader design than anything more specifically. Alternatively, I’m a strong believer in the elephant temple theory, perhaps ancient space elephants constructed Antiochia and raised the columns. After all, if they could break 2 cranes, what else but space elephants could construct them in ancient times?
Also hi kaslı patron I promise I’ll lift many rocks next week 🙁