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

5

(IX:87; 23-11-48)

The stairway is preserved to a height of 1.35 from the floor at the side. Four steps are preserved and a fifth was destroyed in excavating. The steps are 0.90 wide, 0.22 to 0.35 deep (wider toward bottom) and 0.25 or slightly more high. A flattish grey stone is fixed to the bottom step with its face flush with the edge of the step. Similar plaster, a clayey plaster, covered large parts of each step. This suggests that the stairway was surfaced with stone. Unusually large numbers of natural flat stones were found in the tumble, and may very well have come from the steps.

An oven sunk into the ashy floor runs under the LC wall. It is 0.15 deep, lined with baked clay and filled with ash. Pieces of the clay lining lie over the ash under the wall.

Photo Bam. '48 I 6.

The LC circuit wall by the stair consists of an outer shell about 0.50 wide, an inner face a single course wide, and a fill of the same loose gravelly chavara we found in the stairway.

Photo Bam. '48 I 7.