Floor
Description
Henrik Boman & Monika Nilsson
The floor is of lavapesta with randomly set white tesserae in natural stone. The size of the tesserae varies and there seems to be fewer of the white stones along the walls.
The surface of the floor is fairly well preserved, though cracked over most of the area and missing completely at some locations, especially along the walls.
The floor material is c. 0.1m thick, including the bedding, as seen in the below described hole. Reused material is found in the bedding and under it; by the N wall, wall plaster is seen in the floor bedding, where the lavapesta layer is only c. 0.03m thick. At some locations along the wall, the bedding for the floor is missing and the gap is filled with earth.
The hole by the E wall
A round hole was found in front of the centre of the E wall.
Measurements
Depth: c. 0.60m.
Diameter: c. 0.30 - 0.35m.
Location: 0.18m from the E wall, 1.85m from the N wall (measured from the edge of the hole).
The thickness of the floor was circa 0.10m by the section in the hole. The material of the floor, as shown in the section, is light coloured, with pieces of both brick and lava. Under this layer was pottery and plaster (see plaster 1-3).
The majority of the material inside the hole was placed there and some of the stone fragments, pottery and so on might be from the construction of the room, i.e. when the floor coating was laid out. We can therefore not positively deduce that the material below floor level is from an earlier building phase. We concluded that the hole could rather be connected to existing structures in the room, as the niche in the N wall, and not with earlier activities in the room.
The work was abandoned 2005-09-26 when we draw the conclusion that the hole did not correspond to a structure.
West: 3.60m.
North: 4.61m.
East: 3.46m.
South: 5.10m.
A door (Width; 1.2m) where the cuttings for the lintel are visible (Height: 2.27m), the depth of the doorframe is 0.38m.
Brick pier: Width: 0.53m; Height: 1.98m (concrete core higher, modern?); Depth: 0.43m.
Window: Width: 1.9m; Height: 1.98m (no indication for original height).
Window sill: Height: 0.91m as preserved, original height unknown.
