Week 1

We finished the 1st week of excavation; hot, dirty & hard work moving dirt & rocks. Good work volunteers!!!!

Elizabeth's group continued the excavation of previous years in the residential sector of area "C" (see pic at lower left) across from the "clinic". An interesting bead was found that Rami thinks might be Hellenistic. On Friday almost at 12 noon (it seems that interesting things happen at the last moments!) a beautiful basalt mortar was uncovered. It's shown in situ below & appears to be whole. We'll find out next week when it comes out. The volunteers will have to find the pestle next week.

A beautiful faïence bead was discovered which Rami believes is iron age (~3000 years ago). Notice the brilliant colors. Faïence is the conventional name for fine tin-glazed pottery on a delicate pale buff body. The invention of a pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history of pottery. The invention seems to have been made in Iran or the Middle East before the ninth century bce, and there have even been records of the invention as far back as 1316 bce as Faience ingots have been found on the Uluburun Shipwreck

Carl's group worked in "A" west (inside the main city gate) moving lots of rock & dirt along with sifting. A magnificent tri- faced bronze Scythian arrowhead was discovered. This is not the typical arrowhead found at Bethsaida. Rami said that the Scythians were quite brave warriors & often were hired mercenaries fighting for various armies. They might have been involved in the razing of the city in 732 bce. Wikipedia states that -

The Scythians or Scyths were a nation of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists originally of Iranian stock, who dominated the Pontic steppe throughout Classical Antiquity. By Late Antiquity the closely-related Sarmatians came to dominate the Scyths in this area. Much of the surviving information about the Scyths comes from the Greek historian Herodotus (440 bce) in his Histories, and archaeologically from the exquisite gold work found in Scythian burial mounds in the Ukraine and Southern Russia. There is a wonderful collection of Scythian gold work displayed at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

Steve continued this probe from last season at the back of chamber 3 in order to see the connection with the iron age walls found opposite in chamber 2. Its very tight working in there with only room for 1 person at a time.

Aaron Gale & group worked on the east side of the iron age main city street just slightly north of the main city gate to see if the 3000 year old marketplace could be uncovered. They dug down through much surface material from the Syrian army occupation (previous to 1967) & from previous excavation years. They went down a total of 1 meter (a little over 3 feet) which is a lot of moving of dirt & destruction rocks from the city's destroyed walls. Maybe next week they'll get down to more interesting depths when they start sifting.

Link to all the pictures I took this season - CLICK HERE

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

Human interest - http://www.communitycorrespondent.com/kptm/, search for Judith Schwartz

Week 1