Final Summary

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Tesoro trench 26, grids P-R 62-71 is located to the north just outside the south-east building. The trench was taken down to depth 1.10m (west)-->1.00 m (east) which is the appr level of the terra cotta floor of the building. The burn layer found throughout the building in the earlier years was just reached at depth 1.10-1.0m. At this depth was also reached the plasyer concentration (at least in R). The summer's work in this area of T26 added to the information about the south-east building in several aspects:

1. Destruction of the building: No tile fall was recorded in the trench and very few fragments of lateral sima/ raking sima were found. The burn layer and the large amount

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2. Lines of rocks/tiles/pithoi: A depth 0.7 (plaster layer) a line of rocks/tiles/pithoi was found in P-R 67-68 (see HDA I p92). Another line was found in P-R 66 at depth 0.8m (HDA I p140) and a third in P-R 67-68 (depth 0.9-1.0m). Since these lines are roughly on the axis of the upper building (though outside the upper building's area), these may have been used as a drainage for the upper building. Another support for this is that th epithos rims found in this area are of a type associated with the upper building. The lines of rocks/tiles/pithoi

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cannot be part of foundation walls since the pithos and tile fragments were lying partly under the rocks.

3. Function of the south-east building: Most notable are the numerous pithos fragments found in this area, perhaps defining it as a storage area (the numerous animal bones would also support htis). It would not explain, however, why at least some of the pithos rims are of an upper building type unless the same shapes continued to be used. The large amount of bronze, bronze "balls" and slags might indicate that medal working took place in this area. Ivory working might also have taken place in this area though all of the fragments were found in dpeth 0.6-0.7m.

4. Chronology: Apart from the Ionic

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bowls and a few Italo-Corinthian fragments, supporting the date of the building to the second half of the seventh century, one fragments was found which may be Villanovan - a coarseware fragment with a proturberance (see HDA II p 3 #2).

In terms of the artefacts this trench proved very productive, even though it is outside the building.