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Chapter 2 (part 12)
Layer VI: the Mycenaean castle, continued (p.148).
Fig.54 shows
us the masonry of the northern corner of tower VI g in section and
elevation. From the dimensions given in the drawing it can be observed
that the embankment in the lower part, about 31m high, is stronger than
in the upper part, which was once about 6m high.
It is not the
same on both sides of the corner of the tower, but on the (p.149)
north-eastern area, the average of which I have drawn in the left-hand
part of the figure, is larger than on the north-western side drawn on
the right. The enlargement of the embankment in the lowest part of a
retaining wall is technically very advantageous and is still sometimes
used today, for example in the case of the mighty retaining walls of
dams.
The fact that it was carried out on the north-east tower
testifies to the great technical knowledge and practical experience of
the old master builder. If we add the superstructure made of bricks,
which has only a few slopes, to the substructure, as indicated by
dotted lines in fig.54, we get a twice-broken line as the outline of
the whole tower, which in its general shape roughly corresponds to the
well-known profile of the Eifel Tower.
Fig.54: Section and view of the northern corner of the large tower VI g.
At
the northern corner of VI g, not only is the entire superstructure made
of bricks destroyed, but also the uppermost part of the stone
substructure. The latter piece can easily be added to the drawing. The
superstructure made of unfired bricks is still partially preserved in
the south-east and north-west parts of the tower and could then be
indicated in the drawing. However, its height and the type of its upper
end are completely unknown.
We already know one of the
surviving pieces of wall made of bricks from photo 14, where the rows
of bricks can be faintly seen directly above the north-western wall
of tower VI g at b. We owe its preservation to the circumstance
that both the stone substructure and the lower part of the brickwork
were buried when the castle wall was built from smaller stones at the
time of the VII layer, which appears at the top of the picture at d.
At
the southeast corner of the tower, where the burial was not as high as
further north, the layer VII settlers lined the brick superstructure
with a cladding of small stones, presumably because the outer bricks
here were badly damaged. I present this passage based on a drawing in
Fig. 55.
 Fig.55: South-east corner of tower VI g with a structure belonging to layer VII.
The substructure of the VI layer, (p.150) easily recognizable
by the regular blocks, ends in a horizontal line, above which the
masonry of smaller stones belonging to the VII layer begins. Several
rows of unfired bricks remain behind the latter, but are not visible in
the drawing.The
brick superstructure was originally not quite vertical on the outside,
but inclined slightly inwards. Two facts justify us in this assertion.
First, the surface of the stone base is higher on the outer edge than
on the inner edge. The layers of brick must therefore have had an equal
inward slant and their outside a corresponding deviation from the Lothe.
In Fig.53, the surface of the substructure and the layers of bricks
have accidentally not been inclined. Secondly, the inside of the stone
substructure, insofar as it was visible above ground, is also slightly
inclined; at the north-east tower this inclination is about 0.06 m in
height. If the inner side of the superstructure had a slope
corresponding to that of the outer facade, so that the wall thickness
remained the same over the entire height, it was advisable to give the
stone substructure the same deviation from the vertical on the inside.
Since such a deviation actually exists, we may conclude that the whole
upper wall is inclined. The later fate of
the large north-east tower has already been mentioned in part, but it
deserves to be summarized again briefly on the basis of the
photographic views in Enclosures 20, 21 and 22. During
the existence of the sixth layer, the 18 m wide tower with its 9 m high
substructure and its superstructure, which was certainly also high,
dominated the entire north-eastern part of the castle. As the pictures
show, the small uncovered corner still has a dominant effect. When
the VI castle was destroyed, the brick superstructure was partially
destroyed and was therefore repaired with rubble stones by the VII
settlers when they settled in the destroyed castle. Only in the VIII
layer, ie in Greek times, were the stairs and the walls made of small
stones built next to the tower, which can be seen in all three
pictures. They did enclose the tower and hide its lower part from the
view of the residents, but the northern corner itself remained
partially visible within the stairway and could therefore possibly
still be shown in Greek times as the remains of the ancient Homeric
castle. It was only after the great
excavation work and new buildings carried out by the Romans after the
castle was destroyed by Fimbria (85 BC) that the last remains of the
old tower disappeared under the high masses of rubble covering the
slope of the hill and under the mighty new retaining walls surrounding
the enlarged temple precinct of Athena. These Roman ashlar walls are
visible in all three pictures and are recognizable by the letters
(Steinmetz characters) carved into several stones.
Since its lower seven layers of stone (p.151), as can best be seen in
photo 21, consist of soft material and should therefore lie safely
underground as a foundation, and since the following six layers of
stone, because of the excellent state of preservation of their surface,
are actually below the earth, although they should evidently be visible
from their harder material, we may conclude with certainty that the
whole corner of our stately tower VI g was buried and no longer visible
by the time the Roman retaining wall was built. Considering
the buildings inside the VI castle, we can start with the facilities
located in the west and then turn to the eastern buildings found later.
In general, we refer to the large plan of Plate V, on which only the
walls of Layer VI are laid out in red and are therefore best
recognizable. Details that could not be drawn on this plan are to be
explained in turn by special floor plans given as text illustrations
and by photographs.
 The
VIA building is revealed in squares A 6 and B 6 close to the western
castle wall. After its western half had already been found in 1890, it
was completely uncovered during the excavations of 1893. Its ground
plan is published in Troy 1893 (p.17) and is repeated here in fig.56. Fig.56: Floor plan of building VI A.
Although little but the foundations have survived and even these have
disappeared in some places, the floor plan can be supplemented with
complete certainty, as has been done on Plate V and in fig.56. In
front of a hall about 9.10 m wide and 11.55 m long is a vestibule
(p.152) of the same width and 4.25 m deep. Remains of columns or column
bases have not been found either in the hall or in the vestibule. In
the upper northeastern half of the hall, however, a few stones had come
to light, which are marked a and b in the ground plan (fig.56) and
were initially considered to be the remains of a foundation wall for
inner columns. After their complete exposure, however, it turned
out that they could hardly have served this purpose because of their
shape; they were therefore not drawn at all in the book Troy 1893
(Fig. 2). Despite the great span of the ceiling, there appear to have
been no columns in either the hall or the vestibule. If one wanted to
explain the absence of the columns by saying that they might have been
burnt as wooden columns and therefore completely disappeared, one has
to reply that their stone column bases or at least their foundations
would have had to be found. However, since no definite remains of
either of them have come to light, we may conclude with probability, if
not with certainty, that there are no columns at all. The same applies
to building VI A as we said above on p. 88 about the ceiling and the
entablature of the older Megaron II A.
That
this construction was not a temple, as we initially thought possible,
no longer needs to be proven after the discovery of the other
individual buildings of the VI layer. Although its plan resembles that
of the simplest Greek temple, it must have been a dwelling. As has long
been recognized, the temple received its basic plan from the ruling
house of earlier times. Our assumption that VI A is a dwelling house is
also supported by the fact that a thick layer of ash was found
approximately in the middle of the hall, some of which can still be
seen under a house wall of layer VII. For there can be little doubt
that this ash came from a hearth arranged in the center of the hall in
a manner similar to that found in the megara of Tiryns, Mycenae, and in
the II tier of our castle
The current state of preservation of Building VI A can be
seen partly from the ground plan and partly from the images in photos
13 and 23. With the exception of the foundations, almost everything is
destroyed. Of the walls that were once visible above ground, only small
remnants of the two longitudinal walls have survived, but the
foundations have escaped destruction almost in their entirety. The
places where the latter have also been destroyed I have drawn lighter
in the ground plan.
 Photo 23:
Western Wall (b) of the building VI A and southwestern castle wall (a)
of the VI layer; House walls (d and g) of the VII layer; (h) the VIII
layer; (i) the IX layer.
The thorough
destruction of the whole building, as well as the other inner buildings
of the VI castle, is due to the fact that the walls and even the
foundations were made of good building blocks, which were certainly
very welcome to the VII settlers as excellent building material for
their houses. We already know the large stone blocks from which the
foundation is built in three layers (p. 153) from Figure 32, where they
are marked with b. Above that, in the same picture, there is another
layer (c) of the side wall built of small rectangular stones. On
photo 13 we have already seen the large stone blocks of the foundations
of the two buildings VI A and VIB, marked with e. The side wall shown
in part in fig.32 also appears on photo 23 in bird's eye view.
You look down on the wall (b) from above and you can clearly see that
the stone structure is not uniform everywhere. In the small piece that
remains of the rising wall, the masonry shows that regular type which
we call a wall of "stone bricks" and which is to be seen in the
superstructure of the eastern castle wall and also in a piece of the
western castle wall (in our picture labeled a designated) have
encountered. We will discuss the younger walls, which are also visible
in our picture, later; of these, c, d, e and g belong to layer VII, h
to layer VIII and i to layer IX. The
superstructure of the walls, which has now been destroyed, presumably
consisted entirely of those well-worked small stones, for nothing has
been found here of adobe bricks or clay, the sure remains of a brick
wall. The front ends of the side walls, the parastades, will also have
been made of the same stones; at least we have no right to suppose
special pilasters of wood, or of any other material. Neither strong
burn marks have come to light, nor specially worked stones, nor the
stone bases such as those found in the buildings of the II level for
the wooden parastades. It was already said when discussing the interior
columns that there may once have been wooden columns between the wall
pillars, although there was not the slightest trace of them. However,
it must not be concealed that, based on the facts, the existence of
such columns must be described as very improbable.
We have not
been able to determine anything about the former lighting of the hall.
Perhaps there were side windows, but perhaps the lighting came through
the door. That such a light existed between the vestibule and the hall
is of course not subject to any doubt; however, their size and
architectural features are unknown. The roof was probably a horizontal
earthen roof; at most, since no roof tiles have been found, a steep
gabled roof made of straw, shingles or similar material can be thought
of. A second building inside the VI castle
has been discovered north of VI A, namely the large building VIB. What
has been preserved and uncovered can be seen from the plan of Layer VI
on Plate V (cf. also fig.2 in Troy 1893).
They are three walls of a south-west facing porch, and small pieces of
the sides of a hall, which evidently may be added behind the
porch. How large this was cannot be
said with certainty given the complete destruction of the rear wall,
but it can at least be roughly calculated. Since the proportions of the
vestibule (p.154) roughly correspond to those of building VI A, the
hall probably also had similar proportions. The length of Hall VI A
with a width of 9.10 m is around 11.55 m, so Hall VI B with a width of
11.85 m was probably around 15 m long. The completion of the back wall
in the large plan V, indicated by dotted lines, is based on this
calculation. As
the dimensions of the floor plan are larger than in the VI A building,
its walls are stronger and the stones are thicker. The foundation walls
have a thickness of 2.10 m, the length of the stones exceeds many
times. The type of stonework in the only foundations that have survived
agrees entirely with that observed in Building VI A: large blocks of
stone are lined up close together on both outer sides of the walls, and
small stones are used for filling between them. The
rising walls, of which unfortunately not a stone has been preserved,
can be thought of as being built of small, regular blocks, as in
building VI A, because this is the only way to explain the complete
destruction of the superstructure. The small rectangular stones were
used primarily for the houses of the later inhabitants. The complete
absence of fragments of bricks and clay also precludes the idea of
walls made of adobe. The large stones of the foundation can be seen on
photos 13 (marked e e) and 23 (marked f). There
is a small irregularity in the porch in that one side wall is shorter
than the other. Apparently the foundation of the north-western wall,
lying closer to the slope of the hill, was made somewhat longer, in
order that it might be as strong and secure as that of the other wall;
for the same reason it also reaches down to a greater depth. In the
upper visible parts of the porch, the walls will of course have had the
same dimensions and probably both have been specially equipped as
parastades. Of course, we do not know what form they took. Likewise,
it is not known whether pillars were placed between the parastades to
support the entablature and ceiling. Given the large clear width of
almost 12m, one would not like to do without columns, but we have not
found any positive evidence of their former existence. I should
mention, however, that on the western slopes in the later Schutte
we have found a column base of porous limestone which completely
resembles the bases found at Tiryns and Mycenae. On top of an irregular
stone there is a 0.11 m high circle with a diameter of 0.46 - 0.49 m,
on which a wooden pillar stands. Since the base was not found in situ,
it may well have belonged to one of the VI A or VI B buildings, but we
cannot even assign it with certainty to the VI stratum based on its
location. What is striking is the direction
of building VI B towards the castle wall and (p.155) also the narrow
entrance that remained between its porch and building VI A. A building
of such dimensions is expected to have better and wider access and a
porch-to-way direction. The chosen arrangement created a triangular
square in front of the vestibule, enclosed by the castle wall and the
back wall of VI A, which can be considered a special courtyard of VC
B. Building VI B consisted of a
courtyard, a semi-open vestibule and a closed hall, as we remember one
involuntarily recalls the passage from Homer (Iliad
VI, 316), which I have already quoted above (p. 94) in the discussion
of building II B. Hector finds Paris seated with the women in the thalamos of his house, which consisted of an aula, doma, and thalamos. These are the same three parts that are in the house at VI B, provided that the open vestibule can be called the doma. It doesn't seem impossible to me, although the doma is
usually understood to mean the main room of the house. However, it
should perhaps be remembered that the main room of the antique house of
later times, the tablinum, is usually open on at least one side. It is not difficult to describe the large hall as a thalamos.
Whether there was a corresponding special courtyard in front of
building VI A cannot be determined because of the many later buildings
on this site.
 The third inner building of
the VI layer that we have to discuss is the VI M building, located
south-east of the previous ones in squares C 7 and C 8. In terms of its
layout and location, it differs significantly from the other two
buildings. Fig.57: Ground plan of building VI M. Unlike VI A, it is not located directly next to the castle
wall and at the same height as it, but on a terrace more than 4 m high,
which was separated from the castle wall by a wide path. And its ground
plan, which is shown on Plate V and in fig.57, has a completely
different shape. Instead of a single hall and an associated vestibule,
we have here several adjacent rooms, about whose purpose unfortunately
little can be said. Even the connection between the rooms and their
access can no longer be determined after the great destruction of the
upper walls.
 Photo 24:
Support wall (A) and inner walls (B) of the building M of the VI layer;
southern castle wall (c) of the VI layer; House walls (D and E) of the
VII layer.
The best preserved is the
stately retaining wall (a f in fig.57), which still stands 5 m high at
its highest point. We already know their cross-section and their
relation to the southern castle wall from fig.39; their current
appearance can best be surveyed on photo 24. It occupies the entire
center of the picture and bears the letters a a. The walls of small
stones in front of it (d) belong to houses of the VII layer. The large
ashlars (c) of the wall occupying the foreground are the remains of the
southern castle wall. In the background you can still see parts of the
walls between the interior rooms of the VI M building, recognizable by
the inscribed letter b. (p.156)
The 4 projections of the retaining wall are the most striking in the
picture. Brightly lit by the sun, they stand out clearly against the
dark wall. In terms of their shape and their technical manufacture,
they correspond exactly to the projections of the castle wall, which
were discussed in detail above (p. 119). If the imposing wall needed
another witness to its belonging to the VI layer, it was present in
these projections. As with the castle wall, its purpose can only have
been artistic. The long, high wall was effectively interrupted and
enlivened by the projections. The distance between the projections is
about 5.50m, which is about half as large as that of the castle wall. The
stone structure of the wall is most similar to that of the southern
castle wall. The stones are very large, especially at the corners, and
mostly worked at right angles. Small stones (so-called gussets) are
only occasionally used to fill in the joints; they are only found in
large numbers in the lower part of the wall, which was intended to
remain underground as a foundation.
 These
small stones can be seen quite clearly in fig.58 on the right, which
shows the projection marked d in the ground plan and the adjacent
pieces of wall. We previously saw another (p.157) projection
(e) in fig.34. The photograph in fig.58 also shows very well the
various weathering of the individual parts of the wall. There is no
sign of weathering in the lower section, the corners are still sharp,
the surfaces of the stones even show the traces of the individual hits
with a hoe from the time they were worked. Fig.58: Retaining wall of the VI M building with an attached projection. The first signs of
weathering appear in the middle of the height. Finally, in the upper
part, the stones are badly weathered, the sharp corners have not only
disappeared, but the stones have become quite round and shapeless.
There is almost nothing left of the projection on the top two stones. On
the basis of such observations about the different weathering, it could
be determined that a path rising to the east (to the right in the
pictures) ran along the entire wall between the retaining wall and the
castle wall. (p.158) Originally it only covered the lower part of the
wall. During the existence of the sixth layer, the ground was already
higher; it increased in the two periods of the seventh layer and was
probably only so high in the eighth layer that even the last stones of
the wall had disappeared under the ground. The elevation of the floor
in the VI and VII layers can also be seen in the section in fig.39,
where the various floors are drawn as found in front of the western
part of the retaining wall. On photo 24 the rising line of the path can
be seen in some places. Of the two corners
a and f (in fig.57), the western a is very well preserved, while the
eastern f is almost completely destroyed. The latter is that "beautiful
and venerable bulwark" found and admired by Schliemann in 1872, but
later destroyed by the local farmers (cf. p.4 above). At that time,
along with the corner f, the eastern side wall f g also perished, from
which only so few stones are left that there can be doubts about the
exact direction of the wall. On the other hand, the corner a and the
adjoining side wall a w are very well preserved; it was still used as a
house wall by the residents of levels VII and VII. Since it was already
badly weathered at that time, it can serve as a witness for the long
duration of the sixth layer. Enclosed by
the large retaining wall and the two side walls are several interior
rooms, of which the two rooms r and s and the large hall t are secured.
For a long time we have tried in vain to find out why all these spaces
are not quite right-angled. The assumption that the deviations from the
right angle were caused by errors in the execution of the construction
can be considered impossible given the good technique of all walls;
they are apparently created on purpose. If
one now considers that the walls converge towards the center of the
castle and that exactly the same phenomenon occurs also in other
buildings (e.g. at VI E and VI F and at the towers of the castle wall),
the thought can be made not to deny that the inner buildings, which
were apparently laid out in concentric circles around the center of the
castle, also had partly radial side walls converging towards the
centre. Had these lateral walls been parallel, the narrow, radially
directed paths between the individual buildings would have been much
narrower at the inner end than at the outer. On
the other hand, when the side walls were converging inwards, the narrow
spaces remained the same, or at least about the same width, throughout
their length, according to the extent of the deviation of the houses
from the rectangle. Since the width of the building, where it varies at
all, is always smaller in the inner part facing the center of the
castle than on the outside, I believe that the attempt to have paths of
even width is the reason for the irregularity of the (p. 159) Houses.
Both the layout of the buildings on concentric terraces and the radial
direction of the transverse walls testify to the systematic and
well-thought-out general layout of the VI Castle. One might assume that
the outward widening of the towers is caused by the radial direction of
their side walls. While room t is over 13m
deep, rooms r and s are only 5m deep. One therefore expects two more
rooms at n and k, so that the whole floor plan becomes a rectangle or
trapezium. But apparently there were no other rooms in the sixth layer
at these points. On the contrary, the
walls surrounding room n, despite their well-bricked corner (at y) and
despite the square base to the east, on which the deepened support mark
of a round column (?) can be seen, seem to come from the VII layer
only, because the room r at w has a right-angled outer corner, which is
adjoined at a higher level and of poorer construction by a north-facing
wall. Also, the direction of wall y does not match the other walls of
VI M at all. And of the walls of room k, the western and middle walls
cannot possibly belong to layer VI because of their poor foundation and
construction, and are therefore in the plan as walls of layer VII.
The
VI layer, on the other hand, certainly includes the m 1 staircase and
the two walls surrounding it. Six steps lead up to a higher terrace to
the right. The thickness of the steps, each made of one stone, and
their altitude leave no doubt that they belong to the sixth layer. The
southern wall next to the staircase is designed as a retaining wall
with an embankment, which is indicated by parallel lines in the ground
plan (fig.57). It contains only two levels, which can only belong to
the VI layer if the lower levels are later removed. The
presence of the sloped retaining wall makes it certain that it was an
open courtyard, the floor of which was about 110 m above sea level. One
climbed up to this height from the southwest corner of the building (at
a) on a ramp-like path and could then continue on the m 1 staircase to
the even higher buildings in the middle of the castle. Whether this
courtyard also included room n and thus extended to the western edge of
the building cannot be determined from the remains that have been
preserved. Unfortunately, the type of
connection between the courtyard and the three rooms r, s and t and
these rooms among themselves is also unknown. Judging by the condition
of the transverse walls, which do not appear to have had any doors at a
height of 34 m, one would like to assume that at r and s there were
cellar-like rooms at the bottom, which were only accessible from higher
rooms from above. Further, while
nothing remarkable is found in room s, a large pithos appeared in room
r, and also a drainage canal passing through the western wall. Richer
still was the content of the large room t, which was divided into two
parts h and i by a poorly built (p.160) transverse wall. Although the
entire eastern half of the building has been destroyed, six large
pithoi have been found in h and a pithos in i, plus a strange
cylindrical vessel with a diameter of 0.40 m and a height of 0.80 m,
several small vessels, grinding stones and about 50 weaving
weights. We measured the height of
the floor to be 34.65m. According to the circumstances of the find,
which are described in detail in the book Troja 1893
(p. 113) by A. Brückner, we believe we can recognize economic areas in
them; perhaps i was a kitchen and h was the pantry that went with it.
According to this, the entire building VI M can hardly have been
anything other than a residential building. The
wall uncovered to the north of the m 1 staircase probably belongs to
another VI level building which we have designated VI N. Unfortunately,
we don't know anything about his shape, as only a small piece of the
wall escaped destruction. The remaining wall remains that we uncovered
here in 1893 seem to belong to other layers. Both
west and east of the VI M building, a ramp-like path led up to the
inner part of the Acropolis. The western path mentioned above is built
over by buildings of the VII layer, but still close to a layer of small
stones and the hard layers of earth of the former floor recognize. The
eastern ramp has partly fallen victim to Schliemann's large north-south
ditch; only its eastern part was preserved in squares D 7 and D 8. Below and next to the more recent buildings there is a screed made of
lime which rises southwards and which (p.161) is clearly recognizable
on our Plate VIII in the
 right-hand part of the large north-south
intersection. Also in the photograph reproduced in fig.59, the evenly
rising line of this path can be clearly recognized by the light color
of the chalk and the inscribed letter b. It rises from right to left
and goes over the wall (a) of the V layer made of small stones. Fig.59: Ramp path (b) of VI layer with walls of V layer (a), VII layer (c) and IX layer (e) Above
it, in the right half of the picture, separated from it by a low layer
of debris, there is a wall that is completely secured by its
characteristic high-edged stone slabs c as a wall of the 2nd period of
the VII layer. The floor of the latter stratum was above the
orthostats, as the doorstep d indicates. In the left half of the
picture, the walls of the VII layer, although preserved, are not
visible because they are hidden by the foundation wall e of the IX
layer, made of small stones. The gradient of the ramp can be taken from
the numbers inscribed in the plan (Table V) and also from the average
in Table VIII; it is about 1:7. To
the east of the ascending path, in square E 8, we have discovered a
round wall of the VI stratum, but nothing definite can be said about
its significance because of the small extent of the piece that has been
uncovered. We can only assume that the path coming from the Gate VI T
turned north in an arc to reach the height of the middle castle on that
ramp. It has been said above (p. 24) that
the part of the castle north of Gate VI T contains several buildings of
the VI layer, but it is better not to be excavated for the time being.
At the eastern end of this unexcavated part, smaller remains of the
walls of several buildings of the VI layer have come to light, without
us being able to recognize their ground plan or give any definite
information about their importance. The
first building that we are somewhat familiar with on our path to the
east is the VI G building. The remains of the wall are in H 7 and the
neighboring squares on both sides of the large south-east ditch that
Schliemann dug in 1873. At that time the building was cut into two
parts; the larger piece, an oblong square with an inner wall, survived
to the north-east of the ditch; only a small piece, apparently the wall
pillar of a vestibule, was left standing on the south-west edge of the
ditch. The dotted lines on Plate V
show how these remains can be combined into a whole building, which in
its ground plan resembles the other buildings of Layer VI. Assuming
that a transverse wall in the ditch has been destroyed, the ground plan
consists of a south-west facing vestibule, a larger hall over 6m wide
and over 100m long and a narrow back room which could be considered a
back hall, if it weren't at the north-east end wall, (p.162)
We have only uncovered a little of the interior of the building,
because this would only have been possible after the demolition of the
walls of the VII and IX layers above it. However, the preservation of
these walls seemed more important to us than the enlightenment to be
expected about the interior of Building VI G. Through small excavations
we have ascertained that some pithoi belonging to the VI layer have
stood inside, namely two in the hall and two in the narrow back room.
The
walls of building VI G onsist of flat, little-worked stones
and are therefore similar in design to the eastern castle wall. They
will therefore, like this one, belong neither to the youngest nor to
the oldest constructions of the VI layer. After the destruction of the
VI castle, the eastern part of the building was rebuilt by the
residents of the VII layer. Because although the upper part of the wall
consists of almost the same stones as the lower part, both must come
from different epochs, because there is a low layer of rubble between
them and the ground plans of both do not quite coincide. In the 2nd
period of the 7th layer the building was renovated in a completely
different shape after it was destroyed again. Between
VI G and the eastern castle wall, close to the latter, another wall of
layer VI was found and drawn on Plane V, but nothing can be said about
its significance. This is all the more regrettable because at its
south-western end (in J 8) there is a strange depression similar to a
well, which evidently had a special purpose that is unfortunately
unknown to us. The diameter of the almost cylindrical hole is 0.50 m,
its depth about 1 m. Since the whole complex is supported by two large
stones, which also form the bottom of the hole, it cannot be a well.
The upper ending is not known because the whole upper part is
destroyed; the former depth of the hole cannot be determined either, While
the last-described buildings of the VI layer were almost completely
destroyed in antiquity and also suffered greatly during the
construction of the south-east ditch, the buildings uncovered further
north have at least been preserved to such an extent that their ground
plan can be determined with certainty.
[Continue to Chapter 2, part 13]
[Return to Table of Contents]
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