Report on the 1955 seasonH. de Contenson

Henri de Contenson

The trenches, the supervision of which Monsi[handwritten: i]eur C. Schaeffer had entrusted to us in 1955, were opened to the North and South of the area of 1949 and are distributed on either side of a street East-West, to the North of a second East-West street lying to the South of the first and to the West of the only North-South street cleared so far and which cuts the East-West axes at right angles. This street network will serve to delimit the various areas of the excavation.

I°. To the North of the first East-West street.

In the eastern part of the area, a narrow strip has been explored along the northern edge of the northernmost East-West street This area, greatly disturbed by illicit digging has yielded no coherent architectural remains. One can only identify two occupation floors there: one at 0,40 m., the other at 1.30 depth, on virgin earth.

On the upper floor, a biconical spindle whorl was recovered of stone incised with dotted circles (Pt. 35), and a hand-made pot with a handle, not very characteristic (Pt.26).

On the lower floor, a number of objects were encountered at 1 m. depth: two earrings, one of bronze and the other of silver (Pt. 33), a squat vase (Pt. 32), an alabaster lid (Pt. 38), a fragment of bone stylus polished (Pt. 44), a piece of worked green stone and a bowl with low carination and small ring foot (Pt. 26). At 1.20 m. there was a conical loom weight in grey stone (Pt. 34). Immediately above[handwritten: ?] the floor, at 1.30, the ceramic remains from the start of Iron I were abundant: globular cooking pot with flaring rim and a handle, in burnt black earth (Pt. 40), strainer-spouted vase with vertical band of pairs of triangles opposed by the apex in red paint; vase with short tubular spout decorated with a radiating brown motif, sherd with red geometric decoration, sherd with red concentric circles, sherd in orange fabric with slip red