Week 5 began with a bang as the volunteer diggers reached the cobblestones of the street leading up to the city main gate. This locus is 5 meters long by the 4 meter width of the street and is north of the already excavated (in 2000) portion of the street. The street is covered with the destruction of the outer city wall that collapsed during the 4th century AD. After much dirt was taken out from between the boulders (see week 4), Dr. Arav decided to dig the east side of the street until the cobblestones paving the street were found. The upper portion of the street slopes away from the city gate at about an 8% decline, while this new section that was opened up slopes away at a smaller decline. An interesting layer of quite large flat rocks was discovered (see picture at bottom left), oriented east to west; possibly being a simple wall that was added long after the street was built.
Work continued in chamber 2 taking out mostly fill dirt that was used as a base of the floor. A quite beautiful bead was found during the sifting (see picture below). It appeared to be glass, but upon closer examination it was seen to be some kind of stone. Dr. Arav believes that it's a semi-precious stone, which will have to be verified by a geologist. By the end of the week the volunteers had gotten down to a simple, compacted floor. The next step will be to open up a portion of the floor and excavate down to the bedrock.
Dr. Arav decided to explore the east side of the bastion area (just east of the city gate). Much dirt and rocks were taken out and at a lower depth it appears that the base rocks of the outer city wall were found. This is the east face of this wall which was measured at about 6 meters thick.
Pictures can be enlarged by going to the photo gallery & clicking on the desired picture.
Note : Interesting archaeology blog - http://archaeologydigs.blogspot.com/