gregoryjenks

Tag: Bethsaida

  • Bethsaida 2014 – Day Nine

    We were back on the dig today, and at least in Area T there was a significant amount of dirt being moved. Everyone is keen to uncover as much of the hidden history of this small part of the site as we can before the end of this week. As the soil is removed and the fallen stones taken away, we are beginning to see the walls with much greater clarity.

    We began by preparing our limestone kiln pit for its official photograph. First the rocks and bare dirt needed to be swept to provide a good surface, and then the official labels were added:

    dusting-dusting

     

     

    It may be that the discovery of this pit will unlock several puzzles for us. It has not only given us a sense of how the ancient limestone was quarried to be burnt for the production of fertilizer, but the presence of significant numbers of Roman nails in the out and the adjacent areas dug in 2013/2013—as well as the presence of numerous Ottoman smoking pipes—suggests the pit was used in the Ottoman period, with timber materials from the Roman period being used as fuel for the destruction of the limestone vessels.

    Here is the latest of our Ottoman smoking pipes:

  • Bethsaida 2014 – Day Seven

    We spent today in Nazareth. What a deep blessing to be back here with a bunch of new friends to show around my favourite place.

    We began with a brief visit to the Basilica of the Annunciation, before moving just a few metres north to the Sisters of Nazareth Convent where we spent an hour or so exploring the underground excavations: the Holy Cave, the first-century Cave House, and the intact tomb with rolling stone, preparation chamber, and three burial shafts. Here we are before going down below the Convent:

     

    After that we went through the Souk (the Old Markets) to visit the Synagogue Church which happens to be alongside the Melkite church in Nazareth. Our guide, Abu Ibrahim, is from the Melkite community here, so this is his church.

     

    From there we continued through the Souk until we came to El Babour Galilee Spice Mill, where we were welcomed and entertained by the generous Tony Kanaza.

     

    Our final stop before the lunch beak was the beautiful Geek orthodox Church of St Gabriel with its ancient well:

     

    After visiting this church we had around two hours free time for people to explore the city by themselves, buy lunch from local vendors, and shop for gifts. I think was a very special part of the day. We then went to Mt Precipice, which offers panoramic views of the Jezreel Valley:

     

    From there we went to Nazareth Village with its reconstructions of first-century village life in the Galilee. As always, “Joseph” the village carpenter was one of the highlights with his first-century skills and tools:

     

    We ended the day with a visit to the Nazareth office of Sabeel, where we met with several members of the committee and had an opportunity to learn firsthand of their work.

     

     

     

  • Bethsaida 2014 – Day Six

    Today the energy levels were high and the winds were less blustery, so we were set for a good day on the tools at Area T.

    Even before we were joined by the visitors from Sabeel Nazareth (see below), we had made some exciting new finds:

    Julien found that the spot he had been clearing was actually a pit used by Bedouin to burn limestone recovered from the ancient ruins at the top of the hill to create fertiliser. He is one happy camper, and would happily stay back after the bus leaves at 12.30 to continue working:

     

    Meanwhile, in the opposite corner we have found the top of last year’s Mamluk wall over which a later level of occupation has laid our new set of stone walls.  (Nicole is standing on a large stone that seems to be part of wall W1202 from 2013.) Happy campers all around today:

     

    While all this was happening our guests from Nazareth arrived to share the day with us:

    With their help we cleared more of Area T than would otherwise have been possible.

    It seems we have at least three phases of occupation at Area T: (1) an initial Mamluk settlement prior to the earthquake of 1202, which re-used some older materials including the 1C grinding stone included in W1202, (2) the occupation phase represented by W1204, and (3) the Bedouin who destroyed part of W1204 to create the pit in which they burned limestone (and maybe some timber materials from the Roman period, judging by the nails found in the pit).

    Meanwhile, exciting finds have been turning up in other parts of the site as well. Around 11.30am we began a series of “show and tell” visits to each other’s areas so that we could learn about the highlights of the week. It was fascinating to see the materials being exposed in Area A West and Area A South. I wonder what the next week of digging will reveal.

  • Bethsaida 2014 – Day Five

    Our fifth day since arriving in Israel, and our third day on the tools at the Bethsaida archaeology project.

    Despite strong winds coming up around 11.00am, we made fantastic progress in Area T  today. We exposed a wall running the entire width of our square. It was not only almost right on top of the northern boundary line, but even turned a snappy 90 degrees at the NW corner of our square to continue a metre or so so south along the western boundary of the square.

    The wall can be seen here:

     

     

    While the neat change of direction in the NW corner can be seen here:

    The energy levels in the square rose perceptibly as these walls began to be uncovered. While it is not yet clear how they connect (if at all) with the lower walls found in 2012 and 2013, it sure will be interesting to find out.

    Stay tuned for the next update …

     

  • Bethsaida 2014 – Day Four

    Today in Area T work continued on the new square that we marked out yesterday.

    This photo from last year shows the sifters located exactly where we are now digging (!!), which was a spot we chose in 2012 because it was a pit with a lot of stones and rubbish. I guess we are now going to remove those stones and shift that rubbish:

    Happily we prepared the area for this year by removing the sifted soil and the worst (we hope) of the stones, as this picture records:

    Steady progress was made during the morning, and we look forward to even better results tomorrow, as well as on Friday morning when we shall be joined by a dozen or so young people from the Sabeel community in Nazareth. Our goal is to expose the eastern extension of walls W1200 and W1202 that run east-west and were uncovered in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

    From 12o2, Wall W1200:

    From 2013, Wall W1202:

    This photo shows the new area in relation to the squares from the last two years:

    In the evening I presented the night time lecture. My topic was “Searching for the Nazareth of Jesus”. This is the same topic as one of my presentations at the Snowstar Institute Conference in Canada in April this year. The related full text article has been downloaded almost 1,000 times from Academia.edu, while the lecture from Canada is available online as a video.

  • Bethsaida 2014 – Day Three

    Today was our first regular day on the dig at Bethsaida.

    Work resumed in Area A South (Iron Age remains south of the monumental city gates) and Area A West (a Roman villa above Iron Age remains), while in Area T work commenced for the first time this season. Since I am involved with the project in Area T these daily updates will mostly focus on work in that area, but when special finds are made in other areas I will attempt to mention them as well.

    In Area T we are looking for evidence of occupation by non-elite population groups, since the elites (then and now) tend to occupy the higher levels of any site. The heights offer better security, fresher air, and effective gravity-feed drainage systems … down to the less influential people located lower down the slope. The ‘upper city’ was naturally the fortified portion of the settlement, as well as the place where more expensive structures were to be found.

    The monumental city gate structure from Stratum Five at Bethsaida is a classic example of this selective investment of public resources for the benefit of the elite:

     

    In Area T we do not expect to find such monumental structures (although we are happy to be proved wrong), but rather domestic structures from the non-elite elements of ancient societies. Based on finds from 2012 and 2013, it seems that this part of the site was occupied by a Mamluk village for at least part of the time between 1200 and 1500 CE. There is also some evidence of first century CE settlement, but so far no structures from the early Roman period have been found in Area T.

    The site for our primary excavations this year had been identified and pre-prepared towards the end of the 2013 season, while we had a backhoe on site for other works. That site lies just to the East of the two squares excavated in 2012 and 2013. Our first task today were to prepare for the excavations that will follow over the next few weeks:

    • The site was cleared of weeds.
    • A new square was marked out. In this case, the ‘square’ is actually a rectangle: 4m x 10m. As such it parallels both the earlier squares, and will allow us to see whether any of the walls found in those earlier excavations are extending eastward.
    • The sifting frames were set up, ready for the many buckets of soil that need to be sifted to reduce the possibility of small items being discarded inadvertently.
    • Shade cloth was erected to provide some protection from the sun during our digging.
    • The first bucket loads of soil were removed and most of the crew had the personal pleasure of finding pottery from either the Hellenistic/Roman period, or the Mamluk period.

    As there was no pottery waiting to be identified and catalogued, there was no ‘pottery reading’ session today. Many people took the opportunity to go into Tiberias for a few hours.

    After dinner we had the first of the evening lectures, with Rami Arav offering an overview of some work in progress on the origins of the ancient Israelites and the question of their original religion. Heavy stuff after a hot day in the sun, but lots of food for thought.

Exit mobile version