| Collection: | Corinth | |
| Type: | Basket | |
| Name: | Nezi Field, context 5289 | |
| Area: | Nezi Field | |
| Title: | fill in 1961 house courtyard | |
| Category: | Deposit | |
| Notebook: | 1101 | |
| Context: | 5289 | |
| Page: | 0 | |
| Date: | 2008/04/18 | |
| Lot: | Lot 2008-058 | |
| Stratum: | 50% tile, bone, 15-18 cobbles, bolders (5-8) | |
| Description: | Top slope of the context is uneven. The soil color is mixed. The soil compaction is soft. The soil is poorly sorted. It is sandy silt. | |
| Notes: | With this context, we continued excavating the fill zone south of of the east/west running patch of pebble floor (5291). Refer notes to 5288 for the beginning of this operation. 5289 fill was similar to that of 5288 in that it contains an abundance of tiles, pots, bone, cobbles, and bolders, but the workmen noted that 5289 was slightly harder and it was clearly visible that its soil was more varied. Much of the soil was reddish and blackish brown, but there were also patches of blue and an area under the area covered by 5288 with an abundance of white flecks (possibly of disposal plaster?) mixed with the soil. Also, as we excavated further down into the context, we began to see black flecks (ash?) littered throughout the soil. This mixture of soil, the inclusions found in it, and especially the large white patch of disposed plaster suggest that this fill might be associated with construction debris from the re-modeling of this house, which was then buried under the courtyard floor. The edges of this cut were clearly discernable as a harder soil to the north and an edge of hard soil and stones to the south (see next context sheet for the west boundary). Because of the great variation of the soil we thought at several times that we should change baskets, but our workmen assured us that our soil consistency and compaction remained the same and our supervisor agreed. On the west, 5289 was bounded by a red layer several centimeters thick, which appeared in the scarp. This red layer is a continuation of the prematurely excavated read layer 5293 under pebble floor fragment 5291. The presence of this red layer on the west, under which a layer with tiles is visible, problematizes the possible interpretation of 5309, which lies on top of the red layer to the west of 5289, as a continuation of the cut fill. That 5189 is the full of a cut now seems fairly certain due to reconsideration of this red layer of soil, which is visible on two sides of the supposed cut, but was not encountered in the excavation of 5288 or 5289 which fill the cut. The other two sides are bounded by stone walls/lines. At the bottom of this fill, we cam e down upon a line of rounded stones, running in a line from the south-west to the north-east. Although this surey should have indicated the beginning of a new context, our workmen continued excavating the soft fill south of this line of stones until we noted the clear change in soil color in the scarp and asked them to stop. Fortunately, the excavated soil from the area above the line of stones had been removed just before the workmen began to dig further down into what should be a new context. So, the loose soil was replaced and stamped down to await some future date when the contexts that clearly lie above it have been removed first. From this incident, it should be noted that the soil change from 5289 into this new context was rather subtle in terms of compaction (although color change was clear and inclusions were fewer). Also of note, we found in this context the bottom third of a pot, which had been broken before it was deposited and then broken into further pieces over the centuries. | |
| Context Pottery: | Coarseware. amphora, ganos. 1 handle. (saved to lot) .; Coarseware. amphora19 bodysherds. (saved to lot) .; Coarseware. pitcher2 handles. 21 bodysherds. (saved to lot) .; Coarseware. pitcher1 handle. (saved to lot) .; Fineware. pre-Medieval1 bodysherd. (saved to lot) . | |
| Pottery Summary: | 1 frag(s) 0.02 kg. (100% saved) fineware. | |
| 79 frag(s) 2.34 kg. (100% saved) coarseware. | ||
| 2 frag(s) 0.01 kg. (100% saved) cooking ware. | ||
| Context Artifacts: | tile 1 | |
| Period: | Late Byzantine (1059-1210 AD) | |
| Chronology: | 11th c. NPD | |
| Grid: | 272.77-271.65E, 1033.88-1034.26N | |
| XMin: | 271.65 | |
| XMax: | 272.77 | |
| YMin: | 1033.88 | |
| YMax: | 1034.26 | |
| Site: | Corinth | |
| City: | Ancient Corinth | |
| Country: | Greece | |
| Masl: | 84.55-84.85m. | |
| References: | Report: Nezi Field 2008 by Jody Cundy and Megan Thompsen (2008-04-07 to 2008-06-13) Report: Nezi Field 2008 by Josh Gieske, Laurie Kilker (2008-04-07 to 2008-04-24) |