Interesting developments in the “barracks” (Operation V).

Continued excavation by John, Kristina, and Charlie in Operation V has brought to light some interesting details regarding the building we thought might represent an Assyrian barracks or storeroom. The mudbrick walls are quite close to the surface and badly preserved, as I noted in a previous post “Some Early Finds”. We have now defined the pebbled floor and the lines of the walls surrounding it.

To the south, in the interior of the southernmost of the two large buildings, we found the tops to two large storage jars immediately below the plow zone. These vessels are called pithoi (singular, pithos) and some from Ziyaret Tepe are nearly 2m (6 feet) tall. They are a well known Assyrian type. The Operation V pithoi appear to be standing on a floor, or set into the floor or possibly into a mudbrick bench. The tops of the vessels are badly damaged, almost certainly by the modern plows which can penetrate up to 35-40cm in depth. The rest of the vessel bodies, as far as we have excavated, seem to be intact.

This suggests that the Operation V buildings were used for storage and when the building was abandoned, the huge storage jars were left behind. What were they storing in the pithoi? That’s a great question and we will only know through continued digging. With luck we should be able to answer that question sometime in the not-too-distant future once we get to the floor of the building and the bottom of the jars.