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EXCAVATIONS IN THE LOWER CITY

By the summer the shepherd had moved his mobile tent and animals to the southern end of the city, thereby allowing us to excavate half of one megaron (Cover and Fig. 6) as well as to examine portions of related structures nearby. The megaron comprises a large square hall, measuring c. 8.00 by 8.00m with a wide central doorway, a raised but poorly preserved,central hearth and a clay floor. Stone footings, neatly built from granite fieldstones, would have supported mud-brick walling which, if the width of the foundations is any guide, must have stood to a considerable height. Load-bearing timber posts were set along the inner face of the footings. No certain indications were found for internal timber posts or their stone bases, although such would surely have been placed to support a pitched roof across the 8m span. Patches of burning on the floor point to a roof covering of thatch or wooden shingles and twin leaved wooden doors. At the front of the building was an open porch which would seem to have possessed a raised wooden floor. The interior stone walling appears to have been left bare without so much as a coating of mud-plaster The building itself was devoid of finds. External surfaces were stone paved. The particular importance of this building, together with its twin, Structure B on Fig. 6a, lies in its demonstration of strong Phrygian influence from western regions of the Anatolian Plateau. That the excavated megaron was partially cut through pre-existing stone paving shows that it was not constructed in the very first phase of urban development.

Structure C consists of a row of small cell-like rooms two of which were partially investigated. Here too the mud-brick walls rested on stone footings and there was a thatched roof. A number of tripod bowls (e.g. Fig. 9), carved from soft sandstone, were recovered from Structure C and the paved area between it and the megaron. Partial investigation of the northwest corner of Structure D (Fig. 7) revealed stone fill containing a pair of ornate, biconical, sandstone bases with recessed tops (Fig. 8). These distinctive pieces were not in their original position. In Structure D there are indications of post-destruction disturbance in which the stone bases were displaced. Later, erosion most probably ate away the collapsed mud-brick of the megaron before marshy conditions led to the build up of peaty brown soil. Excavation in Structure E documented insubstantial stone footings beneath a thick layer of collapsed and eroded mud-brick. A displaced sandstone block was perhaps the base for a wooden column supporting a pitched, thatched roof.

The ornate sandstone bases together with a series of sandstone tripod bowls add some credence to the idea that the megarons and associated buildings perhaps served some public function. This conclusion is fully in keeping with the central location of this complex. In addition to any special importance that may be attached to these particular buildings, on which a full report will appear in Anatolia Antiqua XII, these excavations in the centre of the city have confirmed that it is possible to interpret accurately the geophysical imagery at Kerkenes.