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Dr. Greg Jenks from St. Francis College in Australia arrived with a group of 7 volunteers. Welcome aboard. In areas A east, west & south work continued cleaning out dirt & rocks. The volunteers broke through the top layers of rubble, some even modern, to Roman era levels. Structures started to reveal themselves & the work in the coming weeks will be to ascertain what these structures are & from what period.

Breaking news, breaking news !!

Rami sent pictures of the Antoninus Pius gold coin (see pics on the Special Pics page) found during the 1st week to Donald Ariel, Head - Coin Department, Israel Antiquities. Here's what he has to say about the coin.

"Although I can see just about everything was not able to find an exact parallel in my reference work (CRE IV). Neither the obverse and reverse inscriptions appear in CRE exactly as I read them. The obverse inscription is IMP T AEL CAES - ANTONINVS (I find only IMP T AEL CAES - ANTONINVS AVG). The reverse type is a Pietas and its inscription is TRIB POT - COS DES I I PIETAS (I find only TRIB POT - COS DES I I PIETAS SC).

And these closest two parallels for the inscriptions are not found together.

Nevertheless, it is an aureus of Antoninus Pius, dated at the very end of 138 CE. When I receive the coin I will continue my search for an exact reference in other books not now in my office."

So, it appears that a quite rare coin was found which adds another small chapter to the story of Bethsaida. Rami says that 12 Antoninus Pius silver coins have been found in Israel, 1 of them at Bethsaida!

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