Scenic View of the Old City and Work on a Catalog Room

I couldn't pass up this photo from the roof of the Austrian Hospice in the Old City. The Dome of the Rock is in the background. This is one of the better views of the city.

Where does excavated pottery go when it is removed from the field? Some goes to "pottery hell" and unceremoniously gets thrown out. Most of the rest goes to "pottery purgatory" where it remains for awhile until all the pieces can be assembled, photographed, drawn, and published. Then the good stuff may end up somewhere where it can be displayed. On Tuesday, I helped out in the catalog room of the Mt. Zion Dig, just inside the Jaffa Gate of the Old City. The catalog room, located in the Armenian Museum, includes some beautiful first century frescoes yet to be restored, some pottery in process of restoration, and many bags of pottery sherds yet to be sorted. The dig director, Shimon Gibson, has high hopes of reopening the museum, resuming digging again in 2014, and publishing material from earlier digs there in the 1970's.  I also attended a lecture on Byzantine Churches and a lecture on the history of the Rockefeller Museum's archive. And I spent two days in the National Library of Israel.