Introduction

In 2024 T26 was established in order to reinvestigate a building intermittently excavated between the late 1980s, early 2000s, 2019, 2022, and 2023 which has become known as Orientalizing Complex 2/Workshop (OC 2).  This structure consists of a plaster floor interspersed with three rows of limestone column pads that support wooden beams carrying a terra cotta roofing system.  The column pads are irregularly and occasionally augmented by flanking smaller stones which are hypothesized to have lent support to the wooden beam structure in some manner.  It was contemporary with Orientalizing Complex 1/Residence (OC 1) and Orientalizing Complex 3/Tripartite Building (OC 3), but preceded by Early Phase Orientalizing Complex 4 (EPOC 4; see KRK XV), possibly an earlier residence, and Early Phase Orientalizing Complex 5 (EPOC 5), possibly an earlier workshop. 

In 2019, excavation within T26 revealed a depression running east to west along the northern edge of the floor surface in OC 2. While the function and extent of the depression is unclear, the presence of fallen roof tiles and elements of the workshop floor suggests that its construction was contemporaneous with the OC 2 workshop. In 2022, T26 and T100 (NKDIII; AXBI) revealed a roofing tile fall with a number of tiles preserving full widths. The tiles found in the northernmost extent of T26 (NKDII)  and in the southernmost extent of T100 (AXBI) were found laying flatly on a plaster and soil surface, which must have been the northern exterior surface contemporary with the OC 2/Workshop occupation and use onto which its roof collapsed during destruction. In 2023 the extent of the depression and its relationship to the tile fall found to the north of the structure will be further investigated in T26 and T103. The tile fall, first found in 2022 (Locus 14) and removed in 2023 (Locus 24), was revealed to be resting on the upper surface of the depression and extending down the depression's western slope. The depression is covered by a dark, heavily carbon-included soil that evinces the burning of the building and the surrounding plateau. Therefore, another T26 trench continues the exploration begun in the 2019, 2022, and 2023 seasons.

During the 2024 season, a 4 x 4 m trench will investigate the area north of the OC2/Workshop to the west of T26 2023 with the goal of investigating the topography of the area to the north of the building, the extent of the tile fall related to the collapse of the building, and to refine the understanding of the destruction event.  

 To that end, the aims of T26 in the 2024 season are:

• To explore the surface revealed within the depression and beneath the tile fall removed in 2023
• To investigate the extent of the depression to the north of the floor surface revealed in 2019
• To determine the extent of the tile fall to the north of OC 2 
• To uncover details that will clarify the chronology of the OC structures in relation to the EPOC structures
• To understand the stratigraphy between T98 and T100
• To determine the nature and function of the small auxiliary stones of OC 2