Bamboula, Area A Circuit Wall (extracted from McFadden's notebooks)

(IX:55; 5-11-48)

Start clearing the southern area of the two towers of the late wall, in the hope of finding an earlier complex beneath. Remove top soil and earth that had washed in and come on the well-known fill of loose stones. A wall appears in the top level in a line with the L.C.III wall to the south.

6-11-48Photos Bam. 48 D 9-12.

Start removing the top layer of stones.

10-11-48In the section between the two walls (A and B of pp.54 and 56) we find the stratification shown on p.56.

The East Tower is now more or less clear. It is a large rectangle withbroad foundations around the four sides and with earth with only a few stones in the center. What we have preserved is only a rough foundation. In the east the outer wall of the W.Tower is formed by wall A and the fill back of it and to slightly west of wall B.

Wall B, which I had believed part of the L.C.III fortress, now looks archaic. It lies in a slight depression in the bed rock, and some small stones are packed against its base. Archaic earth apparently goes to the rock.

(IX:65; 11-11-48)

Start opening a section by the circuit wall in the area of my old trenches 5 and 7 and V.Grace's wartime sounding. This is at the extreme S.E. of the Topha lot, running up to the cliff at the south, W. of the early wall.

We find mixed tumble, sloping away steeply from the cliff in the south and coming down on the presumably L.C.III wall.

12-11-48Photo Bam. 48 E 7 with tumble partly cleared and with bedrock in the South and West.

Digging below this level through stones we find in the south a steeply sloping level faced with flat stones and some sherds lai d in reddish mud. It seems to be a built level, possibly sloping down from the rock behind to the wall.

North of a section which may be a wall, the fill is totally different.