This floor is clearly connected with the tufo slab drain and the tufo slab floor (5467) to the north, as well as with the tufo step/ threshold to the south. (5491/2) This space, in addition to serving as a transition between room 6 to the south and the staircase/upper terrace to the north, seems to have had some possible sacred functions, given the presence of the monolithic cylindrical tufo `altar`. It was presumably an uncovered `courtyard`- type space, similar to the central space of the complex covered in slabs 5321/5410.