Corinth Basket Nezi Field, context 6364

Collection:		Corinth
Type:		Basket
Name:		Nezi Field, context 6364
Area:		Nezi Field
Title:		Cleaning basket for storage pit
Category:		Deposit
Notebook:		1103
Context:		6364
Page:		0
Date:		2009/05/12
Stratum:		about 30% - a mix of pottery, pebbles, stones and other modern debris that has accumulated in the depression
Description:		The soil color is light yellowish brown. The soil compaction is loose. The soil is poorly sorted. It is silty sand.
Notes:		After excavation of cut 6363 (bothros 1) (fills 6358, 6353, 6352) of which interpretation is not as yet agreed (likely an abandoned well? Pithos pit?), it was decided that it was necessary to conduct a cleaning of the adjoining pit (bothros 3) in order to better understand the features of the room as it stands following the excavations of the 1960s as as more recent investigations. (for 1960s excavation consult NB 229 page 180, 184; their stereo is listed as 83.92) The eastern edge of the built pithos showed clearly in the ection as it was cleaned- there was a hard, white, pebbly lining possibly plaster, adhering to the eastern edge of the cut; however, the same plaster was not readily visible to the north of western edges until a great deal more soil was removed there. The dirt that Panos excavated was dark blackish brown, or dark reddish brown, and appeared mixed to him. He found the extent of the cut to the west eventually, along with a complete profile pot with a second joining piece. It seems likely that if excavations had continued to the depth where this piece was found, this pot would have been collected. (see above to support that they stopped at elev. 83.70). We're planning to continue to excavate to find the entire boundary of the cut, and then we'll switch baskets and continue downwards. Another consideration as we finished defining the northern edge of the cut is whether the disturbances to the cut on the northern and southern sides is relatinv go a north-south foundation trench for a wall cutting into the pithos cut, or whether the pithos cut is cutting into the N-S wall foundation trench. The remains of a n-s wall definitely seems to project from the northern section of 5484, but whether there is more wall visible will be answered by the next context. At the end of the context we noticed a fw features exposed that made interpretation conflicted and which made excavation necessary in order to figure out the relationship of the new construction and demolition events: 1) when the edges of the cut were finally defined there appeared to be a good, semi-circular cut to the west, slightly straighter and seeming to run and continue northward into the section of the cut and no visible cut to the north and south edges. It seemed possible that the cut had been truncated by a later event, a question that could only be examined from looking at the floor. 2) a section of wall visible in the northern section of wall 5484, seemingly cutting the built pithos/bothros cut. The question that we had to answer was- what was the sequence of events that led to the visible and ostensibly non continuing north-south wall being truncated, as well as the edge of the pit not being visible? The absence of stones in the pithos cut itself meant that some kinf of robbing event was the likely cause for that. Meanwhile, the north-south straighter line of the western edge of the cut could be a foundation or a robbing trench. The best solution that we could conceive was to clean the remaining fill which was by this time well below 1960s levles, in order to see whether more of the pithos cut would exist beneaht. If so, the pithos cut the robbed out wall section and we excavated its fill coreectly. If we found a cut, then we should imagine the wall cutting the pithos pit and being covered with higher fill.
Context Pottery:		Cooking ware. triangular rim stew pot (1100-1270)2 rims. ; Fineware. ; Fineware. pre-medieval3 bodysherds.
Pottery Summary:		4 frag(s) 0.04 kg. (0% saved) fineware.
		25 frag(s) 0.78 kg. (0% saved) coarseware.
		6 frag(s) 0.09 kg. (0% saved) cooking ware.
Context Artifacts:		pitcher base 1 matte-painted (saved to lot); amphora stopper 1; wall plaster red 1
Period:		Byzantine
Chronology:		12th cent
Grid:		270.15-268.37E, 1023.96-1025.3N
XMin:		268.37
XMax:		270.15
YMin:		1023.96
YMax:		1025.3
Site:		Corinth
City:		Ancient Corinth
Country:		Greece
Masl:		84.43m.
References:		Report: Nezi Field 2009 by spongberg hammond lima (2009-05-20 to 2009-05-21) Object: C 2009 9