Surveying and Skiing in Jezreel

Jezreel...a notorious place in the Old Testament. The Israelite king Ahab pouted over Naboth's vineyard here and his wife Jezebel saw to it that her husband "inherited" it. Here Jezebel was killed when her own servants threw her out of the palace window. The dogs devoured her body before anyone got around to burying it. In Jezreel, Jehu slaughtered the seventy sons of King Ahab, an act that Hosea the prophet condemns explicitly. Yet it is also a beautiful place. The book of 1 Samuel mentions a fountain/spring which lies at the foot of the Jezreel Valley floor, a lush fertile expanse that extends east to west nearly all the way across Israel. The valley floor is below sea level, but Jezreel sits several hundred meters above the valley floor.

The Jezreel Expedition hopes to begin excavations next May. This week I assisted their staff in a survey of the area to document and plot various features like cisterns/silos, wine presses, olive presses, graves, buildings, etc. We did no excavation but identified many features that show promise for future work. The two pictures here are of a cistern or silo that is about 5 meters deep.  These silos all go thru the bedrock and then flare out underneath in the soft limestone.  Over 100 of these are on the site in all kinds of conditions dating to 9-10th century B.C. We had to walk carefully! I didn't get to enter any of them.

Jezreel Expedition Website

And for you Alaskans, yes...they have a ski area open year around. You have to see it to believe people ski in 100 degree weather.

Jerusalem at Night

Jerusalem is beautiful at night. You can click these pics to enlarge. Here is a photo of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount at night. The Western Wall is the wall King Herod built beginning around 20 B.C. to support the temple platform that he was renovating. This is not the wall of the Jewish temple itself, but the wall that supported Herod's enlarged platform.

While this picture is very interesting, but even more interesting is the stuff in the foreground of the picture. Excavations taking part in the Western Wall Plaza. I'm not sure what's up there yet but I'll find out.

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.

The Israel Museum

Here are a couple of cool finds displayed at the Israel Museum. I've been to Jerusalem 5 times and the museum has been under renovation every time until now. So it was great to spend a day there.  The first pic is of the Caiaphas Ossuary. An ossuary is literally a bone box. In the time of the New Testament, wealthy Jews who died would be laid in a rock cut tomb for about a year, then after decomposition, their bones would be put in an ossuary, often with the bones of their ancestors, to be kept for generations. Thus derives the expression, "to rest with your fathers." This ornate box has two inscriptions, "Joseph, son of Caiaphas."  This was the given name of Caiaphas, the high priest who condemned Jesus. Prior to this find, some scholars doubted the historicity of such a person named in the gospels. Inside this box were the bones of a 60 year old man.

The second photo is from a block of limestone that was found at a theater in Caesarea in 1961. The words Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judea is clearly seen on the stone. The stone monument was dedicated to the emperor Tiberius, which you can see on the top line. When a person visits Caesarea, they can see a replica of this stone there, but the original is in the Israel museum, just across from the Caiaphas ossuary. Two early historians report that Pilate committed suicide in the first year of the reign of Caligula.

It's ironic that these two enemies of Jesus are so well represented today.

First Week at the Givati Excavations

I recently completed the first week of volunteer work at the Givati Excavation just south of the Old City of Jerusalem, across from the entrance to the City of David. Doron ben Ami, of the Hebrew University has directed the dig from its beginnings in 2007. It contains impressive remains from the Islamic era (9th century A.D.) back to the Iron Age, the Kingdom of Judah (9th century B.C.). The dig has four main areas, M-1 thru M-4. We are now working in area M-4, just working down into the Roman period. In several squares where we are working, there is a collapse and under the collapse of stones, several walls about a meter thick are emerging.


In the middle of the photo you can see the wall emerging, plus you can see the rubble of the collapse that was on top and around it. Also in the picture is a couple of cisterns. The one on the left at the bottom of the photo is fairly deep. The sandbags around the square separate the working areas.

 The destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 is well represented at the site with coins dated to the very years of the siege, including a hole cut into the wall where people hid out from the Roman occupation. Josephus clearly documents that the Romans had to hunt down the insurgent Jews in sewers, caves, and holes in the ground.

All excavation in Jerusalem is controversial. Givati is no exception. I'll unpack a little of that controversy on a later post.

For now, here is a link to a short three minute video done in 2010 that can give you a view of the dreaded bucket line. It's the only way to get the dirt to the top of the surface. We fill two large construction containers full of soil each day. Each bucket line takes about a half an hour. About four a day.  See the link below.

Givati Parking Lot YouTube Intro 2010

Temple Road Ascent and Central Water Channel

I spent some time today at the City of David, just south of the Old City of Jerusalem. After walking through Hezekiah's tunnel and getting wet up to my thighs, I then discovered a new drainage conduit that was only recently opened to the public in 2011.  Archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron completed the exposure of this channel which runs over 650 meters from inside the city walls near Robinson's Arch all the way past the Pool of Siloah (Siloam). Probably built by Herod just prior to the time of Jesus, this conduit ran under the street. Some parts of the channel on the northern end are roofed with a stone vault and on the southern end it was built from the ground up, its walls made of dressed stones.  The southern part of the channel was probably built a little later. Pottery, coins, stone vessels, and decorated stones were found as this excavation took place. The coins marked the second and third year of the revolt of the Jews against the Romans. Scholars believe that the last surviving Jewish rebels hid out there because Josephus say that the Romans ferreted out the last remaining rebels from the sewers and killed them.