Hello blog followers! Bill has asked me to guest-blog, and to inform people of other site developments.
My name is Lindsay, and I co-supervise square O12, which is a semi-isolated square located Northeast of the temple complex, and South-southwest of the Colonnaded way/Industrial Complex. Our square is not part of the temple complex, or the industrial area, but rather sort of a mystery section of the site. The best explanation for this area is that it is potentially an early Christian basilica. The next-door- neighbor square, N12, was excavated last year (by yours truly), and some of the architectural features helped to create this hypothesis.
(The square before excavation)
Unfortunately, O12 was once the dump site for another square in the area, meaning we were digging through dirt and rocks for about 50-150 centimeters. Although we found staggering amounts of pottery—about 2000 or more pieces by my current count—and bone (including a complete animal jaw which jumped out of the balk, scaring Shannon quite a bit), it took us nearly a week and a half to do more than simply move dirt out of the square. However, this week we found a water pipe system that is incased partially in concrete, partially in bedrock that had been cut for the purpose. We have found, as of today, 2 broken systems of water pipe, and one complete, in situ pipe that runs under the bedrock. Kate, my co-leader, swears that this section smells fleetingly of death, and although several haikus have been written on the topic, the smell has not been confirmed. Additionally, we found a complete floor. Our group was originally excited to find a wall in our square; however, a floor is nothing to scoff at. Also, I learned from Andy that the best way to test whether an architectural feature is a floor or a wall is to take a nap on it—and for the record, our floor is very comfy. This test is not unlike the test where you lick a rock to determine whether its pottery or not.
(The floor—above in the raised section of dirt is the location of the water pipes.)
After pottery reading the fate of our wall/water system is unclear. In the words of the ceramist, 99% of our findings are from the 5th-6th century Byzantine period, but one or two pieces of Early Roman Import or 13th century Crusader pottery is completely throwing off the dating of our square. Hopefully, the last few pieces of pottery we find (which are on or below the floor) will provide a clearer picture the date and purpose of the features in our square, hopefully providing a bit more illumination to the site.
Soon we will be opening O11, which is a square directly south of ours, and the process will begin again. This time, however, we may, in fact, find a real wall, or, as rumor has it around the square, the gates to the underworld.
Until then, here’s a photo of the wonderful team that is (on any given day) the “Boisterous Band of Byzantine Bandits in a Bucket Brigade”, or “Hydration Station” at Bet She’an:
Lindsay Morehouse
Here are few pictures from the top.
Herodion had a very deep cistern.
This morning I took the hotel shuttle down to the Old City of Jerusalem and walked back, about 2 miles, getting back before it got too hot. I'm spending the afternoon in the air conditioning! Here's a few pictures from my walk:
I only enclose this picture of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre because of its famous ladder.
I'll blog from Ben Gurion Airport tomorrow night and then this adventure will be over!
Here is a shot of a plain, round column drum that has been fluted with plaster. It's easier than carving the fluting. Kinda neat.
Friday night we went to a Druze village for supper. We got a tour of the town (yes, we did look silly and got a lot of attention.) There are two Maronite Christian churches in town (one in ruins). But after all the wars and commotion in the Golan Heights there are only two Christian families in the village. We were assured that every one got along. The Druze are a heretical offshoot of Islam, started about 1000CE in Egypt. They didn't fit in too well there and soon moved to this more remote area. We got a lot of information about the Druze belief in reincarnation. (It seems God is giving us a lot of chances to prove ourselves.)
The afternoon was spent getting my paperwork ducks in a row, still a bit left on that. In the late afternoon we took a student to Akko (ancient Acre of the Crusaders) to catch a train to the airport as she's leaving early. Here's Katherine and John at the Akko train station (Hi, Katherine), followed by the sun starting to set over the Mediterranean.
When we arrived in Akko and opened the car door, the air was warm and humid and down at the shore there was the smell of the sea. I could only think of one thing: Florida!
Just as we were finishing up our dig for the month (cleaning for photos tomorrow) we found this piece broken off from a Corinthian Capital from the top of a column:
Since we are finishing up our square, we went into town to eat a little shwarma or a vegetarian falafel. Here we are at Shlomo's Baguettes:
This afternoon John went for a run to the Jordan River and I went with him on the bike. It's about a 5 mile trip round-trip on dirt roads through agricultural fields, easy enough on a bike. Here's John with some rapids behind him.
Who knew the Jordan had rapids? It has lots of tubers and kayakers too.
If you zoom on it you should be able to read it.
I had an eggplant lasagna and a thick chocolate pudding/mousse for dessert. And a great German white wine and an espresso. Heaven.
And here's a picture of almost all our crew:
Also tonight I gave a presentation I developed on Emmer wheat. This wild crop, from which our modern wheats arose, grows as a weed in this area of the world, say within a 100 miles of where I'm sitting. And only here in any great amounts. And surprisingly, this wild plant was only discovered by western science 100 years ago. This from the New York Times in 1912:
(The square before excavation)
(The floor—above in the raised section of dirt is the location of the water pipes.)
Lindsay Morehouse
(Don't forget to zoom!) In the far distance (we're looking west), over those hills, is the Sea of Galilee. There was a grass fire a few weeks ago that darkened the landscape.
Here's a breach in the wall made by the Romans:
Here's my roomie John, who traveled down from Canada to be here, next to the car we rented for the month here.
During the rest of the day, a pottery expert from Jerusalem has come up to date our pottery. By pottery, I mean small pieces and chips. Most is not useful but some is "indicative". Each square meets with her in turn and we take furious notes. This will be part of the permanent record of our square. Here is a group meeting this afternoon under a tree:
We haven't collected much pottery in our square of tumbled column drums. Here's our measly stash waiting to be evaluated.
