R6

(fig. 92)

(Adam Rabinowitz, 1992)

Fig. 92: R6, plan and section.

The earliest features in the trench consisted of a wall on the northwest edge and a cut running parallel to it along the south east edge. The wall, 5, was of dry stone, built with a construction trench filled with red soil, 10. In it opened a door marked by a probable doorjamb of tile, and a trampled mortar and pebble surface leading in to the building, 8. The cut in bedrock, 11, is difficult to interpret: rather irregular, it may have been the foundation trench for an outer wall or, perhaps, a portico. The early street drains at Cosa do not resemble this, and there is no trace of a plaster lining, although there was much broken-up mortar in the fill. In the east corner of the trench, within the cut, a great concentration of stones and mortar (6) may mark the foundation for a column, but this is highly speculative, and if there were a colonnade it would have lain very close to the wall. Between the wall and the trench lay a plaster floor, very worn in patches (9), which covered 8, and may simply represent the original plaster skim which had worn away in the area of the door. This phase may be dated to the Republican period, on the basis of the black-glazed pottery and the absence of any later material.

Lying over the filled trench and the floor was a destruction layer, 4, consisting of much stone, mortar, tile and pottery. This was covered by a midden deposit, 3, and a further tip of stones, 2. All of this material was Augustan, suggesting the use of the area as a dump in that period.