Dr Nicolae Roddy arrived at Bethsaida for the beginning of Session 2 with 16 volunteers in tow, among them his daughter Aurelia, age 14.  His Creighton colleague, Dr. John O'Keefe, also brought a daughter as well as a nephew.  Among them is yet another father-daughter team as well, giving Father's Day a special meaning for some.  Most of this group of fresh volunteers have been working Area C, among the complex of Hellenistic villas close to the Vintner's House and across from the so-called "Clinic."  Great finds have been forthcoming there, including several oil lamps and a tiny silver coin of Tyrian mint.  Excavations in one of the villas began yielding what appears at this point to be a cellar covered by two massive stone slabs.  Stay tuned for next week's report to see how this pans out.

Prof. John Green from Michigan State U. brought 6 students & John took over the Hellenistic/Roman area from Carl Savage at the end of the 4th week.  An interesting area was uncovered on the west which appears to includes 3 separate pits containing animal bones of various types.  Could this have been the "McDonalds" of 1000 years ago ? 

Work continued in chamber 1 where a small wall was uncovered (see pic on lower left).  Its quite deep down and runs in an east/west direction at a 90° angle to the 2 meter wide stratum 6 wall uncovered the previous weeks.  The crew believed that they were just about down to bedrock, but as they continued to excavation dirt & stones they were surprised to discover another floor as shown in the below pic in the middle.  We must check its elevation against that of the bedrock found last year in chamber 4.

Excavation progressed north east of the main city gate as reported last week.  Rami says that perhaps the point where the level 6 stratum wall jogs eastward is a high place ?  Look at the beautiful pic of it below on the right.   Remember that this is the outer city wall from the 9th century bce city which was the city destroyed before the city gate that we see was built.

                                   

 

             Pictures can be enlarged by going to the photo gallery & double clicking the desired picture.          

          Note : Interesting archaeology blog - http://archaeologydigs.blogspot.com/