Tomb Locus:7685:051 represents the actual content of tomb Locus:7685:035 . The tiles appeared after having removed the stones found below Locus:7685:035 , which had erroneously been interpreted as cover stones. Instead, they should probably be viewed as stone fill of a Byzantine tile or gable tomb (cf. Locus:7685:006 ).
The tiles on the north side of the tomb have a vertical position. Their southern counterparts have tilted inwards, thereby sealing off the inhumed individual.
The tomb did not complete conceal or cover the skeleton. The westernmost tile - on the north side - is resting on top of the skull. Moreover, part of the left leg of the skeleton is obstructed by a (vertically-oriented) roof-tile. Thus, the individual appears to have been hastily buried.
The individual was lying on his/her side facing south. The skeleton's legs were crossed, which may be interpreted as an indication that - at time of inhumation - they were tied together.
Orientation tomb:
W-E
Size roof tiles (average):
thickness: c. 3 cm
length: c. 30 cm (?)
width: c. 30-33 cm
Length skeleton (measured in field): c. 1.70 m
Excerpt from final report by S. Fox and K. Marklein:
" On August 10th, 2011, at the excavation laboratory in Oymaagac, Turkey, Kathryn Marklein and I (SCF) cleaned and sorted two skeletons from Jacob Eerbeek’s trench (7685): an adult male (006.005); and an adult female (051.007). The skeletons from these discrete, single inhumation tile burials were virtually complete. They were recovered in extended and supine positions with heads west and arms folded over their chests; the woman’s right arm rested at approximately 60 degrees at the elbow across her chest, while the male’s forearms were perpendicular across the abdomen. The woman’s left foot was crossed over her right foot. Although the distal end of the right tibia of the male slightly overlapped the left tibia, the absence of either foot prevented any observation regarding crossed feet. The skeleton of the female was found to be in a better state of preservation (good) than that of the male (fair). These burials are believed to come from Byzantine contexts. Standard methodologies were used to age and sex the individuals (cf. Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994, Standards for Data Collection from Human Skeletal Remains).
The woman was initially aged as a young adult at approximately 28 years + 4 years of age at death based upon the morphology of her right third sternal rib end (phase 4, Iscan and Loth 1986). Her dentition does not demonstrate a great amount of wear and the mandibular molars have been scored using the Scott (1979) system. The auricular surface of her left ilium was not used for aging as it appears to demonstrate an injury sustained during life. The auricular surface morphology of the right ilium (Phase 3, 30-34 years, Lovejoy et al. 1985) corresponded with the age from the sternal rib end. She was sexed based upon pelvic and cranial morphologies including a wide sciatic notch, and extremely small mastoid processes (Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994). Living stature was reconstructed based upon the length of the left femur (40.5 cm) for this woman at 154.1 cm + 3.72 cm (4’ 11 ¼” – 5’ 2 ¼“), using regression formulae generated by Trotter and Gleser (1952). Her dentition was scored as follows, using the Scott (1979) system as recommended by Buikstra and Ubelaker (1994): #17=Scott 13; #18=Scott 20; #19=Scott 20; #30=Scott 20; #31=Scott 20; and #32=Scott 13. She has some activity markers on her skeleton, including large bilateral deltoid muscle insertions and pitting of the sternal ends of the clavicles, and pronounced markings on both proximo-lateral femora where gluteal muscles insert. Aside from the possible injury to her left ilium, she had a large dental crown caries of the maxillary right 1st premolar with an apical abscess of the tooth root of the same tooth (#5). Both maxillary third molars (#1, and #16) were lost ante-mortem and there were two facial root caries on the right mandibular canine (#27) and 1st premolar (#28). The good quality of the bone from the female’s skeleton should have sufficient collagen preservation to allow for additional chemical tests, such as stable isotope analysis for dietary reconstruction (C, N isotopes) and population mobility (Sr, O isotopes), as well as ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis.
