The big event of the week was the Bar Mitzvah of Ethan Freund, the
son of Dr. Richard Freund, the co-director of the excavation. This
followed the Bar Mitzvah's of Ethan's 2 older brothers, Yoni in the year
2000 & Eli in 1995. The Bar Mitzvah's all took place at
the
Bethsaida overlook which displays the fantastic views of the Sea of
Galilee & the beautiful surrounding country side. The Bar Mitzvah
was attended by Ethan's family, many guests from the USA & Israel & the
diggers who came from working in their dirty clothes. Ethan read
his portion of the torah beautifully & now at the age of 13 has
become
a man in the eyes of his religion. Good job Ethan.
One click on any picture will greatly enlarge it ------------------
Work continued in the A
west area supervised by Kate Rafael. A large Hellenistic ash pit
was uncovered with very few artifacts found for all the effort.
They didn't reach the bottom, so maybe week 6, the last week of the
season, will turn up some interesting finds. A
quite
beautiful, small (~1 cm in diameter) glass, blue & white bead was found
which might be in the class of the famous "eye beads". The eye
bead is a kind of
glass
art originating in
Anatolia. This art has changed very little in thousands of years.
The 3,000 years old antique Mediterranean
glass art lives in these eye bead furnaces with its every detail.
The roots of the very few glass evil eye bead masters that still practice this ages old tradition goes back to the Arabian artisans who have settled in Izmir and its towns during the decline of the Ottoman Empire by the end of 19th century. The glass art that has lost its glamour in Anatolia, combining with the eye sign, was enlivened. The masters who practised their arts at Araphan and Kemeralti, districts of Izmir, were exiled due to the disturbance of the smoke from their furnace and risk of fire in the neighbourhood.
The beginnings of a massive wall, running north - south started to show up as the excavators dug down deeper & deeper. Rami says that a massive wall of this size signifies an important structure & might be one of the walls of Phillip's palace. Herod Philip II, or Philip the Tetrarch, was son of Herod the Great and his fifth wife Cleopatra of Jerusalem and half-brother of Herod Antipas and Herod Archelaus. Philip inherited the northeast part of his father's kingdom and is mentioned briefly in the Bible by Luke (3,1): In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis.
Barney & his crew continued to work in the store rooms, there were 6
just to the south of chambers 1 & 2. See week 4 for a view
of
the area & other information. Large pieces of pottery sherds were
found which are probably the remains of a
number
of large iron age vessels. These are certainly the results of the
razing of the city in 732
bce
when the burning upper floors of the city crashed down on the bottom
floor. In among the pottery sherds was a layer of ash & brick from
the upper floors. Underneath the wall that was removed in week 4 a
trench was discovered between 2 walls running north-south. In the
soft dirt of the trench more large pieces of iron age pottery were
found. These pieces were taken back to the kibbutz where Ben &
Josh under the guidance of Charlene will attempt to restore as many
vessels as possible. See the week 6 page in another week to see
the results of their patient work.
Link to all the pictures I took this season - CLICK HERE
Note : Interesting archaeology blog - http://archaeologydigs.blogspot.com/
Interesting human interest - http://www.communitycorrespondent.com/kptm/, search for Judith Schwartz