During the weekend the Southampton and Cambridge teams has joined the excavation.
The weather has been a bit shaky during this second week, but it has not hampered the fieldwork. On the site has the central burned house turned out to be quite complicated. We have fond several overlapping floors and a number of smaller and larger walls. Some of these walls are aligned while others are not. It is still unclear if they belong to several houses or the same one.

South of the burned house, on the same level, two hearths are excavated. The first is unique, no other has been found in a Hungarian Middle Bronze Age context. The base of this feature is packed with evenly broken up stones, both of local and non-local origin, together with broken pebbles and parts of firedogs. The hearth is of average size – approximately 110 centimetres in diameter.
Directly east of this feature is a smaller but more typical hearth excavated. The two hearths appear to be part of an activity area of which we hope to find the full extent in the coming weeks.

Both hearths

The unique hearth

During 2003 we found a uniquely constructed pit in the southeast corner of the trench (pictures top left). Its structure is similar to that of a house; since it has a thick plastered clay lining that resemble a house wall. Inside the pit we found a broken vessel together with a human pelvis and an upper arm. During the week we have excavated the walls of the pit and recovered another rare find: embedded in the wall was a stone axe – possibly a construction deposition. We are currently attempting to determine the relationship between this pit and a house that is partially found in the same area of the trench.

Pit found during excavations in the year 2003

In the northwest corner (pictures top right) of the site we have started to remove the debris of an unburned clay house. Like the one in the south east corner, only parts of it is actually lying in the trench. However, directly under this debris we encountered a large deposition of potshards and an internal division wall. The shards do not seem to be originating from the same vessel.

Beside the regular tell excavation, the project has a number of laboratories that processes the material that we accumulate on the site. In the computer lab is the site registration performed, where finds and features are related, in the digital documentation system Intrasis.

Picture from th NW-corner of the site