Sector E, July 2008

Sector E, opened in 2007, covers a total surface area of 126 m2.
Investigation of the late Middle Bronze Age levels continued.
US 3013 was removed. This layer contained an amber bead, a fragment from a cup of the so-called Isolone type, a small deer horn spatula with a distinct handle and quadrangular blade, a spindle whorl, the base decorated with an incised “wolf’s tooth” pattern and a number of handles from cups-ladles.

US 3013 overlay US 3006 in which a heaped patch of yellow silt and gravel appeared. It was characterised by the presence of flat elements of baked clay spread with white pigment on its surface. At a few metres to the east, along the southern excavation edge, another heaped feature appeared, probably the remains of the disintegration of silt-gravel structures overlying US 3006=3044 and 3015. In US 3039 a deer horn comb was found, of the type with a small pierced quadrangular handle and surfaces decorated with dice eyes. This artefact dated to the central phases of the middle Bronze Age.

At the base of US 3015 a layer of brown sand emerged together with an area of loose gravel in which there were three holes. In layer 3006/3044 a comb, two small fragmentary spatulas and a long punch all made of deer horn, a stone sharpener, several fragments of high-handled cups and of Isolone type cups.

Below US 3006 layers of dark brown peat appeared (US 3041/3054) together with a deposit of hazelnut coloured compact silt (3061) which seemed to be delimited by large stones. At this stage of the excavations the levels of deposition (US 3065 and 3041) were exposed, whilst the underlying layers began to appear (US 3062: gravely layer, US 3043: layer of charcoal-rich silt and yellow sand, US 3057: yellow gravely deposit and US 3058: a layer of loose cobbles).

US 3041 produced a crucible fragment and the nozzle from a bellows, a triangular bronze dagger blade with a simple trapezoidal base that had two large thick rivets with large domed heads, whilst a third smaller rivet was situated at the centre of the base, circa twenty handles from capeduncole (one-handled cups or bowls) most with lateral conical expansions and with truncated horn appendages, some of which of the crescent type. The dagger and the handles indicate a date within the central phases of the middle Bronze Age (BM II B).

The main stratigraphic unit below was a layer of very dark silt (US 3043) with frequent charcoal inclusions. This overlay a level of loose sand (US 3040). Also in the zone beside sector C there was a dump of material (US 3070) comprised of large deposits of ash and numerous pottery fragments, which filled a hollow in the layer below that was marked by a slippage of pottery. Among the finds there was an amber bead.

The US 3043 produced about fifteen handles of the type with lateral expansions and truncated horns and two handles with slightly expanded points and one “elbow” type handle which seemed to date to an earlier phase.

A preliminary analysis of the finds and of the stratigraphic sequence in sector E seems to indicate the existence of the remains of structures and levels datable to an advanced phase of the middle Bronze Age, in particular the BM II B. This dating is supported by the typology of the high handles, most of which with lateral expansions in the form of animal snouts and the bronze dagger of the Bacino Marina type from US 3010. Moreover, the truncated horn-shaped handles were rarer and axe-shaped handles were absent (only one example was found in the agricultural soil).