The excavation campaigns
(by years)
Direction
Aline Tenu (CNRS – UMR 7041 ArScAn)
How Eveha Participates
Topography
Archaeological investigations
The 2016 campaign lasted six weeks, from Septembrer to October, continuing the excavations in the three areas (B, C, E) opened in 2015.
In area E, stone basements had been interpreted in 2015 as partitions or installations of the monumental building revealed by a long massive wall. It appeared finally that these basements are those of a 26 m² house divided into three rooms. A lot of ceramics were found in it, that show the diversity of domestic activities at the end of the 3rd millennium.
In area B, the research of 2015 had unabled the discovery of several buildings implanted orthogonally, according to a preconceived plan. In 2016, we decided to continue the excavation of the main building, accessible from a paved roadway. The entrance, marked by a monolithic threshold, led to a vast room in chicane. The entrance control was reinforced by the presence of a room next to the entrance to shelter the guard. Two other rooms, including one partially excavated, were identified. The 2016 data confirm that the building has had at least three phases of occupation.
In area C, the excavation of level 2 was continued. In the cellar, where 8 tablets had been found in 2015, about thirty more were unearthed in 2016. These documents are badly damaged, only a few still have written inscriptions on the surface. They all belong to the the same « flour office » archive.
The top of earlier walls, still not dated, appeared underneath level 2.
In the north, the chronology of buildings identified in 2013 and 2015 has been refined. The hypothesis of cultual activities was proposed to explain the burnt circular structures. It is reinforced by the discovery of ceramics with specific non-functional shapes.
All these areas help documenting archaeological levels of the last third of the 3rd millenium BC. In addition to carbon dating, this date is confirmed by sigillographic, ceramic and epigraphic studies. The structures we discover seem to have had different functions such as habitat (building site E), a potential religious complex (building site C) and a prestigious residence (building site B). All of these assumptions must of course still be confirmed.
