11 August 2011
10 June 2011
Jerusalem Map
Here is a map of the old city of Jerusalem. I have highlighted in pink the roads that we walked while we were there for the weekend. We must have walked some of the streets 3-6 times! Maybe more... it sure felt like it!
2009 Pottery Cache
In 2009 we discovered a huge cache of pottery in Field G. We saved every last sherd from this excavation and this year we have laid out all the sherds in the conference room of the hotel. We leave a key down at reception and any time we feel like it we go up there and try to piece together some of the enormous puzzle.
This afternoon my dad and I must have spent 3-5 hours sorting through the hordes of pottery and we made remarkable progress!
Here are some photos of what we put together:
This afternoon my dad and I must have spent 3-5 hours sorting through the hordes of pottery and we made remarkable progress!
Here are some photos of what we put together:
Update: Cistern Steps
In a recent post, I mentioned that we thought we had found steps leading down into the cistern or reservoir.
Here is a picture of what those steps looked like:
Upon further inspection, these stones do not appear to be worn. If they had been steps we would see signs of wear from people walking on the stones for so many years.
We have come to the conclusion that they are part of the top of the wall and that the wall has been robbed out.
Not as exciting as we once thought.. but you have to go with what the evidence tells you!
Here is a picture of what those steps looked like:
Upon further inspection, these stones do not appear to be worn. If they had been steps we would see signs of wear from people walking on the stones for so many years.
We have come to the conclusion that they are part of the top of the wall and that the wall has been robbed out.
Not as exciting as we once thought.. but you have to go with what the evidence tells you!
06 June 2011
Aroma Cafe - Israel, Ben Yehuda Street
In Toronto, Canada, I go to this cafe all the time. Now I've been to the original one! Can't wait to tell the girls back home that I have been to the Israel location!!
05 June 2011
Back in Madaba
Just wanted to let everyone know that we have arrived back in Madaba. We walked about 18 hours on Saturday and needless to say we are very tired. I'll have to post something more extensive tomorrow night.
We go back to digging early in the morning! Should be a good day, W2 plans to cut down into the layers of floors to date each surface. I'm very excited about that.
Anyway, Jerusalem was an amazing city to visit and I would gladly do it all over again, even with the knives ;)
Goodnight!
We go back to digging early in the morning! Should be a good day, W2 plans to cut down into the layers of floors to date each surface. I'm very excited about that.
Anyway, Jerusalem was an amazing city to visit and I would gladly do it all over again, even with the knives ;)
Goodnight!
03 June 2011
A Note on Israeli Border Crossings
We left this morning, a group of eleven, to go to Israel for the weekend. We left at 8am and arrived at the border by 9am. It took us an hour to get out of Jordan, you have to get your passport stamped that you are leaving. We got on a bus there and waited forever for them to come and give us our passports. Then we drove over the Jordan River, which isn't more than 3 ft across! We got to the Israeli border and we waited there in the bus for 45 mins before we were allowed to get off and wait in a long line for another 45 mins. This line only allowed us to enter the immigration building.
Once inside the building, you immediately have to put your bags through a scanner and walk through a metal detector. Now, this isn't an airport and I always travel with a pocket knife. Well, this time I had two, but still, they are only small knives. BIG MISTAKE!!
I walk through the metal detector, no problem. But my bag gets put through again. I didn't think anything of it because with all my photo equipment, I usually get searched every time. So my bag sat on the floor for quite a while before someone came and picked it up. They had me open it, took out my tripod and placed it through the scanner separately. That wasn't it. They put my bag through again. The object was still there. Pawed through my bag some more. Found one knife. Put the bag through again. Something was still there. Pawed through my bag again for the third time. Found the second knife. Put my bag through again. Finally it is cleared and I can painstakingly put my bag together. (Somehow he didn't find my second passport, so that was a blessing.)
Ok, so they have my knives. Now what? I still have my passport at this point. I'm standing around making sure I keep an eye on who has my knives because they keep getting passed through different people's hands. Finally one guy comes up to me and asks what my name is and to see my passport. So I give it to him. Then for probably another 30 mins my knives and passport are being passed around. All of a sudden all the guards are yelling and running around and they make all of us run into the next area. It seems as though there is a threat outside the building and they need to get us to safety. So I don't have my passport and now they are corralling us into a different part of the building. Great. I start talking to another couple of guys who also were being held for questioning and one tells me that "This is all bullshit, they do this to make you think something is happening, but it's bullshit."
Sure enough, a couple mins later we are allowed back to where we were, as though nothing had happened. Ok, so I get to talk to the Head Guy with a translator and he asks me why I have knives. I tell him "I'm an archaeologist, and I always have the knives in my bag at the dig. I took the same bag, they were left in there." Phew. This answer suffices and I get my passport back, but he keeps the knives. He tells me I'll get them when I go through customs. I'm thinking "yeah right" but at least I have my passport back.
We go to the next passport check (there were 5 or more!) and as I'm waiting in line the same head guy comes and gives me a note that says "CUSTOMS BEN-AMI" he says, go see Ben-Ami he will give you the knives. Ok, so I guess I might get them back! Anyway, the lady asks me why I'm going to Israel. I say to visit. She asks when I'm leaving and what I'll be doing. She then asked me if I'm going to the West Bank, and as soon as I say "no" she stamps my passport and I'm through!
Only to stand in ANOTHER line to have my passport checked AGAIN.
Ok, well I got my knives in the end, but the moral of the story is, if you are going to Israel across a land border. Treat it like you would an airport and leave your boy-scout toys at home :)
02 June 2011
Flags of Jalul
Canada, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Brazil, Andrews University, Jordan, Russia, Croatia, Belgium
In the foreground are all of the tools we use to excavate.
Stratigraphy Showing Three Surfaces
1. Top Surface comprised of small stones. It is most likely a road or walkway.
2. Yellowish Plaster Surface.
3. Appears to be another Stone Surface.
Layers 2 and 3 appear to converge towards the right of the picture frame. We will begin excavating between the layers next week to date the time periods of each surface.
01 June 2011
June 1 - Jalul has a cistern!! ...maybe
Maybe, maybe, maybe... another favourite saying of an Archaeologist!
Today we had the most excitement yet!
W5 has continued to excavate their enormous wall, towards the north of their square. The wall appears to be going down in steps! This is important because it might be the steps that people would take to go down into the cistern to get water. The steps would circle down 5 to 25 meters into the well to the spring at the bottom. Such cisterns have been found at many sites in Israel (like Megiddo, Hatsor, Gezer.) But one has never been found this side of the Jordan River. If this is the case this would also be the largest of them all. And it would be a MAJOR discovery for Jordan Archaeology and History.
Now, these "steps" could be where stones have been robbed. (Later occupations would rob earlier buildings of their beautifully squared stones instead of quarrying their own stones to make new buildings, and so you have missing parts of walls a lot of the time.) As we excavate further we will discover whether or not this is the case.
I'm so frustrated that I can't load pictures because the wall is actually starting to curve in the direction of the dip in the land where we speculate the cistern is located.
Now another interesting note is that in 2009 we discovered the wall of the city in Field G. This new wall of the "cistern," lets call it, appears to be wider and larger than the city wall! Most unusual because typically the wall around a city is the largest, obviously, for the best defense. Why would there be such a large wall inside a city? Well... this wall would be to keep the earth from falling into the well. This appears to be true because the wall is inclined, going in towards the bottom. Which would create a sort of buttressing to hold the surrounding earth out.
Needless to say we won't be getting much sleep tonight because we are SO excited about this find.
Back to Field G, we have another discovery today! Abe Rivas found a figurine! I talked to Stefanie Elkins, asking her who she thinks the figure depicts and she seems to think that it is a Hathor-type deity. She clearly has two braids ending in curls beside her face and her hands are crossed in front of her chest. (This rules out fertility goddess, because her breasts are not exposed) In her hands appears to be a loaf of bread. So she might not be a fertility goddess, but she could be a different kind of female figure. She was found amongst a lot of cooking pots, bowls, etc. so that, with the loaf of bread in her hands she could have been worshipped as a provider of the family.
Please don't take any of my comments as truth, I'm only writing what we discuss out on the field. These are mostly all hypotheses and hopeful wishes! This blog is just to help keep you in the know about what we know!
Goodnight, one more day on the Tel, and then it's off to Jerusalem! We finalized our plans for the weekend and we will be staying at the Armenian Guest House.
Today we had the most excitement yet!
W5 has continued to excavate their enormous wall, towards the north of their square. The wall appears to be going down in steps! This is important because it might be the steps that people would take to go down into the cistern to get water. The steps would circle down 5 to 25 meters into the well to the spring at the bottom. Such cisterns have been found at many sites in Israel (like Megiddo, Hatsor, Gezer.) But one has never been found this side of the Jordan River. If this is the case this would also be the largest of them all. And it would be a MAJOR discovery for Jordan Archaeology and History.
Now, these "steps" could be where stones have been robbed. (Later occupations would rob earlier buildings of their beautifully squared stones instead of quarrying their own stones to make new buildings, and so you have missing parts of walls a lot of the time.) As we excavate further we will discover whether or not this is the case.
I'm so frustrated that I can't load pictures because the wall is actually starting to curve in the direction of the dip in the land where we speculate the cistern is located.
Now another interesting note is that in 2009 we discovered the wall of the city in Field G. This new wall of the "cistern," lets call it, appears to be wider and larger than the city wall! Most unusual because typically the wall around a city is the largest, obviously, for the best defense. Why would there be such a large wall inside a city? Well... this wall would be to keep the earth from falling into the well. This appears to be true because the wall is inclined, going in towards the bottom. Which would create a sort of buttressing to hold the surrounding earth out.
Needless to say we won't be getting much sleep tonight because we are SO excited about this find.
Back to Field G, we have another discovery today! Abe Rivas found a figurine! I talked to Stefanie Elkins, asking her who she thinks the figure depicts and she seems to think that it is a Hathor-type deity. She clearly has two braids ending in curls beside her face and her hands are crossed in front of her chest. (This rules out fertility goddess, because her breasts are not exposed) In her hands appears to be a loaf of bread. So she might not be a fertility goddess, but she could be a different kind of female figure. She was found amongst a lot of cooking pots, bowls, etc. so that, with the loaf of bread in her hands she could have been worshipped as a provider of the family.
Please don't take any of my comments as truth, I'm only writing what we discuss out on the field. These are mostly all hypotheses and hopeful wishes! This blog is just to help keep you in the know about what we know!
Goodnight, one more day on the Tel, and then it's off to Jerusalem! We finalized our plans for the weekend and we will be staying at the Armenian Guest House.
May 31 - North Baulk Removal
So today was a lot slower. We didn't have any major discoveries.
We started today by taking down our north baulk to expose the wall from W5 into our square, W2. By mid morning we had the eastern side exposed and after breakfast we started removing the western part of the north baulk and discovered that there is another wall perpendicular to the one running through our squares.
Also interesting, W5 has continued digging down beside their wall and the wall keeps going deeper and deeper! I'm excited to see where it will stop.
sorry for the delay in posting, the internet was not cooperating with me yesterday.
30 May 2011
May 30 - Floors, Floors and more FLOORS!
Hello All!
Exciting things happening at Tall Jalul square W2 today!
So yesterday we uncovered the pebble surface and today we dug beside it to see what could be underneath. Mostly we were trying to find the wall connecting our square to square W5, and in doing so we discovered in the stratigraphy under the pebble surface that there are two more surfaces below! About 1 foot below there is a clear plaster surface about 4 inches wide and below the plaster there appears to be another pebble surface!!
We will create steps and see what kind of pottery is in between each surface to date the layers. This is really exciting because these are sealed layers with no contamination from other occupations.
Pottery reading today for the surface showed some Early Iron II and Iron II pottery. I will let you know what we find beneath the surface.
Oh, an exciting development, a group of us is planning to go to Jerusalem for the weekend, so bearing all goes well with hotel reservations I will be able to share with you my experience in Israel for the first time. Should be a great time.
Goodnight! 4am comes early..
Exciting things happening at Tall Jalul square W2 today!
So yesterday we uncovered the pebble surface and today we dug beside it to see what could be underneath. Mostly we were trying to find the wall connecting our square to square W5, and in doing so we discovered in the stratigraphy under the pebble surface that there are two more surfaces below! About 1 foot below there is a clear plaster surface about 4 inches wide and below the plaster there appears to be another pebble surface!!
We will create steps and see what kind of pottery is in between each surface to date the layers. This is really exciting because these are sealed layers with no contamination from other occupations.
Pottery reading today for the surface showed some Early Iron II and Iron II pottery. I will let you know what we find beneath the surface.
Oh, an exciting development, a group of us is planning to go to Jerusalem for the weekend, so bearing all goes well with hotel reservations I will be able to share with you my experience in Israel for the first time. Should be a great time.
Goodnight! 4am comes early..
29 May 2011
May 29 - first day digging
Sorry everyone, posting pictures is proving to be much more difficult than I anticipated. Internet is sporadic at best here, I can't even get online with my laptop.
Anyway, we got to Jalul at 5am and right away put up our Canadian flag! There are quite a lot of flags represented here this year; Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Brazil, Russia, Croatia, Belguim, and Canada! We also fly an Andrews University flag and of course a huge Jordanian one.
After our flag was securely hammered into the ground we gathered up our tools for the morning (wheel barrow, hoes, large picks, small picks, brushes, dust pans, guffas etc.) and set about marking off our Baulks. Baulks are a meter wide and run the perimeter of the square in which you excavate.
We started digging in the south-eastern diagonal of the square to find the floor that we discovered at the end of last season. The floor was covered by two loci of dirt and we broke through to the surface by second breakfast (about 9:30). The surface would be best described as similar to a gravel driveway. It Is made up of many small pebbles, ceramics, even a few bones are wedged in between stones. I'm not sure at this point if we will keep the floor or break through to see what lies beneath the floor.
After second breakfast we started digging on the other diagonal of the square in hopes of finding the continuation of a wall discovered in the square North of ours. Sadly we found only dirt with hardly any pottery. Perhaps tomorrow we will dig deeper and find something.
Archaeologist Mantra: "Hopefully we'll find it tomorrow!". Lol goodnight!
Anyway, we got to Jalul at 5am and right away put up our Canadian flag! There are quite a lot of flags represented here this year; Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Brazil, Russia, Croatia, Belguim, and Canada! We also fly an Andrews University flag and of course a huge Jordanian one.
After our flag was securely hammered into the ground we gathered up our tools for the morning (wheel barrow, hoes, large picks, small picks, brushes, dust pans, guffas etc.) and set about marking off our Baulks. Baulks are a meter wide and run the perimeter of the square in which you excavate.
We started digging in the south-eastern diagonal of the square to find the floor that we discovered at the end of last season. The floor was covered by two loci of dirt and we broke through to the surface by second breakfast (about 9:30). The surface would be best described as similar to a gravel driveway. It Is made up of many small pebbles, ceramics, even a few bones are wedged in between stones. I'm not sure at this point if we will keep the floor or break through to see what lies beneath the floor.
After second breakfast we started digging on the other diagonal of the square in hopes of finding the continuation of a wall discovered in the square North of ours. Sadly we found only dirt with hardly any pottery. Perhaps tomorrow we will dig deeper and find something.
Archaeologist Mantra: "Hopefully we'll find it tomorrow!". Lol goodnight!
28 May 2011
Jerash: A Roman City
We spent our first day in Jordan at the ancient Roman city of Jerash, also known as Gerasa.
The first major settlement at Jerash is attributed to the Greeks at about the time of Alexander the Great (333 BC). However, it was under Roman rule that Jerash truly flourished. Pompey conquered the area in 64 BC and Gerasa became part of the Roman province of Syria and then a city of the Decapolis.
There were hardly any tourists at Jerash, which meant I got to take a lot of photos void of people! We wandered around the whole city for three hours without feeling rushed and really enjoyed our day. I'm trying to post a few photos, but it seems the internet is too slow right now, I'll try tomorrow after the dig.
The digging commences at 5:30 or so tomorrow! We will have breakfast at 4:30 (A.M. by the way...) Load up the cars at 5:00 and start taking photos before the sun rises. I'll be sure to document our digging process tomorrow to share with you.
Goodnight!
-e
The first major settlement at Jerash is attributed to the Greeks at about the time of Alexander the Great (333 BC). However, it was under Roman rule that Jerash truly flourished. Pompey conquered the area in 64 BC and Gerasa became part of the Roman province of Syria and then a city of the Decapolis.
There were hardly any tourists at Jerash, which meant I got to take a lot of photos void of people! We wandered around the whole city for three hours without feeling rushed and really enjoyed our day. I'm trying to post a few photos, but it seems the internet is too slow right now, I'll try tomorrow after the dig.
The digging commences at 5:30 or so tomorrow! We will have breakfast at 4:30 (A.M. by the way...) Load up the cars at 5:00 and start taking photos before the sun rises. I'll be sure to document our digging process tomorrow to share with you.
Goodnight!
-e
25 May 2011
Tel Jalul here I come...
Hello Everyone,
I've started this blog because I would like to share with you exactly what I'll be doing in Jordan this summer. I will be posting photos and keeping you up-to-date on our findings and adventures. I am joining up with Andrews University at Tel Jalul for two weeks of intense digging and enjoyable falafel eating :).
Here is the link to the official Tell Jalul blog.
http://jalul.wordpress.com/
See you in Jordan!
-e
I've started this blog because I would like to share with you exactly what I'll be doing in Jordan this summer. I will be posting photos and keeping you up-to-date on our findings and adventures. I am joining up with Andrews University at Tel Jalul for two weeks of intense digging and enjoyable falafel eating :).
Here is the link to the official Tell Jalul blog.
http://jalul.wordpress.com/
See you in Jordan!
-e
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