Looking at pottery? The swedish team on excursion to the Héhalom Tell

The Héhalom Tell

An unburned house

Fifth and last weeks, July 26-August 06

The fifth week was also the last week the Southampton students participated on the excavation. On Friday night they invited the rest of the participants to a farewell cocktail party in the kitchen in the hostel where they been living. It was indeed a nice evening. After recovering from these festivities the Swedish group went on an excursion in the northern part of Hungary, and among other things visited the impressive Hatvan culture tell in Héhalom.

On the site it has turned out that the burned house in the centre of the trench actually consists of several houses and that the collapsed debris, which lay above, created the image of one large structure. The exact relationship between these structures will be resolved during our next field season in 2005.

In the western part of the trench the two unburned houses shows some striking similarities; both have inner division walls and the northern part of the houses have fewer floor renewals. This may imply that the houses were enlarged during their lifetime, or simply mean that the northern parts were used for other things. The different soil samples we have taken may clarify this question.

The lid to the pit

The large plank-clad pit in the southeast corner of the trench (above) has now been completely excavated. The fill has been removed in sections and it is now clear that the construction resembles that of a barrel. When the last section of fill was taken out from the bottom, we found a clay construction that that may be the lid of the pit.

The sixth excavation week is always hectic. All exposed parts of the trench have to be documented and the last interpretations need to be done. Apart from the nuisance with the bad weather during week five, the excavation has been running smoothly and we have accomplished a lot this season.

Busy bees trying to catch up valuable digging-time lost due to bad weather

The unburned house again