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chapter 8 Structure 4: A Storehouse-Workshop for Household 4 Andrea I. Gerstle and Payson Sheets Introduction Structure 4 was first discovered as a geophysical anomaly by resistivity explorations, and excavated in 1990 by a crew under the direction of Andrea Gerstle (see 1990 report at website http://ceren. colorado.edu or on CD-ROM An Interactive Guide to Ancient Cerén: Before the Volcano Erupted). Although it probably was constructed and used as a domicile initially, it evidently was converted to a storehouse that also included a major agave (maguey ) fiber workshop and a minor painting workshop (Fig. 8.1). The dozens of agave plants growing south of the building apparently were depulped at the northeast corner of the building, using one of the three pairs of sticks found outside the east wall. An activity area was located in the back room. A meal had been served and largely consumed immediately before the eruption struck; this may have occurred in the structure because of its earlier functioning as a domicile. A high degree of biodiversity in cultigens was encountered around the building , with single species in narrow zones alternating with other species. Architecture The platform is almost square, averaging some 65 cm in height and about 3.25 m in length and width (Fig. 8.1), and it was fired prior to adding the walls. Four solid adobe columns, one at each corner, anchor the three bajareque side walls. All bajareque walls, including the interior partition, were further reinforced by large beams running along the tops of the mudded portions. The beams were mudded at the column tops to connect them. As the beams were clay-covered along the wall tops, they formed rounded cornices. All the bajareque walls with beam reinforcements withstood the lateral buffeting of the eruption surges. Only the south wall did not have that reinforcement, and it collapsed (Fig. 8.2). As with so many bajareque walls at Cerén, after the roof collapsed the wall lost its strong reinforcement by being tied into the roofing beams and rafters, and thus became vulnerable to collapse. The vertical poles in the bajareque walls continued upward at least 10 cm above the mudded portion of the wall before meeting roofing beams, leaving a space for air circulation and light. We initially thought this space would allow very little light inside, but computer modeling of the building (e.g., Fig. 8.3) indicates that the interior would have been reasonably illuminated on sunny days (see website or CD-ROM cited above). The front porch was remodeled extensively, to the point of almost burying the front step and creating an extensive flat porch. At the juncture of that porch and the north platform wall, a pole wall had been built, with some of the poles being anchored deep in holes dug into the porch. The poles were tied together in pairs with two-ply agave twine. A swinging portion of the pole wall, slightly offset to the east of the center of the building, served as the front door. Another pole door in the partition wall closed the inner back room from the front room; it tied to the four salvaged olla handles that were embedded in the four corners of the doorway. It was made of two layers of poles tied together. A building with two doors is structure 4: a storehouse-workshop for household 4 75 figure 8.1. Map of Structure 4, the storehouse and agave depulping workshop for Household 4. Agave was grown to the south and west of the building, and it was depulped at the northwest post. unique at Cerén to date and presumably indicates a need to separate the interior activity or storage room from the front storage room. Access to the front room was restricted, and was even more restricted into the back room. Above the doorway in the interior partition wall, running the full length of the north side of that wall, was a high shelf (tabanco). The shelf was made of long beams supported by the east and west walls, mud-plastered along its length inside the building (in contrast to the Structure 2 tabanco), and probably tied to poles emerging from the partition wall. A maize crib was built onto the floor of the back room of small-scale wattle and daub.The small vertical poles were reinforced with small horizontal vines, and then this framework was finished on the outside only by...

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