July 2008 Archives

Today was a day of no digging.  The agenda was clean and prepare the site for photography. 

I cleaned C4 and D4 by brushing all the soil off the walls and sweeping the floors.  No footprints could be seen in the photos.  When all the sites were properly cleaned I went around with Dr. Schuler and photographed.  My job was to set up the meter stick and place the north arrow in every picture taken.  After the pictures were taken, I helped set up the safety fences we took down on the first day of digging.

After four weeks working on an archaeology dig, it is clear to me that archaeology is not as it appears in the movies (Indiana jones).  Archaeology is hard work, but in the end it pays off.  Archaeology is the portal to understanding the past.  Farewell Hippos, Until we meet again!

Today I was to finish covering the mosaic floors, finish leveling the square B0W, and clear final debris in square E4(?).

After working on square B0W yesterday, we left not knowing if there was a mosaic floor.  For this reason, digging was slow moving.  After looking at the tessera, I determined that they were not part of any floor and were alright to be removed.  When they were cleaned yesterday, they appeared to have no mortar on the sides.  This was odd, because this could mean they have never been used.    

Today I learned how to spot plaster.  Many times in the past two week, I thought I found plaster, but actually found soft limestone.  Limestone can easily be confused for plaster.  Plaster is although, flat and thin many times covering a wall or floor. 

For my early morning adventure I was instructed to fill in the hole I had spent all day digging.  This was to preserve the cooking basin until next year when it can be properly preserved. 

I also helped protect the mosaics by burying them under tarps and a layer of soil.  The mosaics, like the basin, are fragile and can easily be destroyed by walking on.  

After preserving the mosaics, I moved into a room at the north end of the Church.  While digging, we think we may have found parts of a mosaic floor.  Over the course of my four weeks, I have learned just how important it is to be careful when digging.  Archaeology takes patience!  Once you dig things up they can not be put back.           

Today I was instructed to square up the soil by digging alone the four walls of our area.  

While on this task, I dug up some kind of large rim.  Working longer in the area it appeared it made a complete circle.  When the entire circumference was uncovered we excavated out the cylinder.  By pure accident I found a cooking basin used by the Romans.  We know it was Roman because we were digging beneath the floor level of the Byzantine structure.  I would also imagine that if we were to excavate the entire room farther down we would find some kind of paving stones from the Romans.  We will not have time this year to do any farther excavating of the Room. After we clean the basin for pictures, we will have to fill it back up until next year.

In the basin I found some unique artifacts used for dating the basin.  Many of these were found by using the sifter.  Many pottery shards were collected.  I also found two old nails and a Brass or copper button.  The button looked similar to a coin but had a loop on the back for sowing it to your close.  These findings will hopefully be used for farther dating of the basin. 

Today we were in a room joining up with the room we had been digging in all last week.  This room is thought to be some kind of meeting room. 

This room was already partially excavated from last year.  Our job was to finish leveling the soil material down to the floor level.  By the end of the day, the job was nearly done.  It should not take us much longer tomorrow. Today we also made some rare finds.  Glen found the remains of many pots; some pots shattered in piles so we have some hope to reconstruct them.  Linda found a fully intact oil lamp.  This is the first full intact oil lamp we have found this season on Hippos.

Today, to my enjoyment, I was given the opportunity to learn the art of Mosaic reconstruction.  This was truly an experience.  It is quite the job.  With the floor unlevel, it is hard to get all the pieces to fall in place, while at the same time, searching for a piece that fits and finding the right color which matches the original finished pattern.  After doing all that, the gaps are filled with a special mortar.  This holds all the Tessera together.  Mosaic floors take a great deal of patience. 

I reconstructed the right part of this mosaic...

Today we were to finish taking the soil down to the level we found the paving stones. 

After taking the soil out, we found many large rocks along with bed rock.  When digging around the stones I uncovered a lead pipe.  We believe we have dug underneath the floor level.  It would appear, given the plaster level on the wall, that we dug the soil about one foot beneath the floor.  That would also explain why we found a lead drain pipe.  The big stones are just foundation rocks for the floor.

In the room next to the one I was working on, two stone bowls and a bronze incense burner was found.  They were all lying upright on the stone pavement like they had just been used.  This was a very rare find.  This is significant enough to be on the cover of an archaeology journal.  I find it interesting that different civilizations will just build on top of each other.  It is also interesting to see the differences between the building styles.    

Today we continued to dig in the small room south of the Church. Our agenda was to find the floor and level the soil.  We also had to fill in the hole we dug in the Church the day prior. 

Today we removed about two feet of soil.  At the very end of the day, I found what appeared to be paving stones; many were missing.  We think tomorrow by breakfast the entire room will be complete.  As I mentioned in another blog, when we dug the hole we removed the foundation for the mosaic floor.  For this reason, when we refilled the hole I had to repave it will stones.   This took time to get the stones all level but it came out looking good. 

On a tour I took with the University of Haifa Team, I learned that all the masonry stones were plastered over.  The plaster covered all the seams of the rocks, Therefore, leaving it to appear like one single wall.  The plaster when painted would look similar to dry- wall.  Many times inscriptions or pictures were carved into the face of the walls.    

Today I was moved into an area south of the Church.  After finding of a well paved room one square farther south, Dr. Schuler decided we should finish the excavation of the room connecting with it. 

The room has door jams that all open into the room.  With the ability to lock the doors, this would mean that the room must have been private property.  The small room to the east would have likely been the living quarters and the big room would have been some kind of gathering place.   It will be interesting to see when the excavation is complete what kind of floor we will find.  We might see old remains of the Roman occupation.

After clearing against many walls and doing some reconstruction work, I find it interesting that the Byzantine builders did not use any kind of mortar.  It seems that the weight of the walls is enough to keep everything together.  With the foundations set on bed rock, as I came to learn yesterday, it would appear that the buildings were quite stable.        

Given Thursday night the internet site was down I was unable to update...

Thursday Day 10

With our site completely finished, my job was to finish up rebuilding some walls and clean the main road running perpendicular to the Decumanus Maximus. 

Needless to say, I uncovered less ancient Byzantine relics today.  Although, the street looked mighty fine when we were finished.  This, however, will only last until the first small wind when dust returns to the paving stones.  When my street cleaning was over, I moved to other sites helping with whatever they needed.  For the first time since the dig started, I saw the progress of all the other sites.  The findings are amazing.

As a passed through different groups, I realized, first of all, that we had the most interesting dig spot.  We found just about one of everything there was to find:  columns, marble, bone, glass, pottery, grinding stones, cisterns, stairs, walls, tessera, and door ways.  Another group I noticed used the method of deep probe, likely because they were not finding much.  A deep probe is a technique used in the field that consists of digging a small trench in order to find things like walls, floors, or soil change.  This can be useful to see if the site is worth spending time on. 

Friday- Sunday Jordan trip

Monday Dig Day 11

Today we were moved into the North Eastern Church.  Our job was to excavate a small 1m x 1 ½m square.  In this particular area the mosaic floor was missing.    

We dug down about 2 ½ feet.  My job was to sift the soil material looking for items such as pottery pieces and bones that could be used for dating the building of the Church.  I found some good specimens of pottery.  The most accurate pieces to date are handles,rims , and bases of jars.  The base I found is one of the most important pieces I found while sifting.    

While digging under the floor level of the church, I learned about the structure of floor foundations.  Underneath the mosaic floor is two layers of plaster.  The plaster covers a thin layer of rock.  Under the layer of rocks lie progressively larger stones.  Not much beneath these larger stones is bed rock. It was interesting to see how the Byzantines constructed foundations.  These foundations obviously worked given they are still intact almost two thousand years later. 

Today the agenda was to remove the soil until we arrived at ground level. 

The square we have been excavating for the last two weeks is officially finished.  Tomorrow we will move to another site.  After uncovering the floor, we found some interesting things.  We believe now that our square used to be some sort of small outside public courtyard.  The cistern had a filling reservoir that likely received water from roof runoff.  It is made of mud stone.  We also found a door way that led into the massive building to the south of our square. 

In the corner near the stairs, I uncovered many broken pottery shards.  I thought at first, given the pottery was embedded in the ground, they must have used it to tile the floor.  This however was not the case.  The pottery was apparently used for fill material underneath the plaster flooring.  The Byzantines reused everything, even broken pottery in the construction of their floors.  Pottery is great fill material given it never breaks down.  

 Today all focus was moved into the new area added to our square.  The agenda was to remove the soil down to the floor level. 

We removed about a meter of soil totally uncovering the cistern found days earlier.  After removing the lid and roughly measuring the depth, it appeared the cistern was about 4 meters deep.  The construction of the cistern was stereotypical of the Byzantine era.  The base of the cistern was made out of an old column drum drilled out to make it hollow.  The Construction of the walls of the cistern are made of small rock and plaster.  Plaster was used in order to fill in gaps in the walls.  This helped in retaining water. 

In another group digging against the southern wall of the Church, an additional wall was found two feet from the Church.  Apparently, the ancient builders did not want to use the same wall of the Church for the wall of another building.  This might be do to the belief of separating sacred life from secular life. 

With the entire area of street in our square excavated, I was instructed to restore the wall that had shifted during the earthquake. 

Today we did little in the way of starting anything new.  The most significant part of the day was spent rebuilding the wall and cleaning up the road.  The site has also been expanded but we will not start digging the new area until tomorrow.  Moving large stones is best done in the early morning.    

I learned today how tedious constructing a wall must have been for the ancient Byzantines.  Building a wall capable of holding the weight of the structure above took many trained artisans.   The Byzantine perfectionist mentality was out of necessity rather than shier desire for beauty.   

Digging Continues for the second week... Today we were instructed to clean out and level and our square. 

After taking the floor down about six inches, I hit the paving stones of the original street.  That is what we have been looking for from the beginning!  With the finding of paving stones, my square has now, with quite confidence, identified the Decumanus. The Decumanus is a street that runs parallel to the Decumanus Maximus; the main road of the ancient city.  Also found in our square was a cistern.  The cistern appears to be about three meters deep.  One thing left to decide is if the paving stones run underneath the stair case and the wall.  If is does it likely means that the stair case was built later than the street itself. 

In the collapse fill, today I found a marble slab with some engravings of leafs and grapes.  This piece if marble was used as a wall decoration during the time of the Romans.  Later during the Byzantine period, the marble was turned on its back and reused as a paving stone.  This goes to show that the Byzantines used everything at their disposal.   They appear to be the kings of recycling.  Maybe modern civilization could take some pointers form the Byzantines.

Today is my one week marker in Israel.  Today is also the last day of the dig week. I have made it an entire week!  We have been digging now for five days.  It will be nice to have free time to check out the local sites.  I hope to make it to Tel Dan tomorrow.  Plans were originally set to take a three day trip to Jerusalem.  Given the current situation with the terror attack yesterday we have decided against the trip.  Passing up Jerusalem is a total downer but Tel Dan should be a great experience as well.  It will take us to the Northern most borders of Israel.  Hippos- Sussita is located on the eastern edge of the Sea of Galilee right near the border of Syria. 

Continuing the dig, my team about finished up the excavation of the site.  We cleaned the soil down to the street level. 

Today we fully excavated the stair way.  By calculating the average height of each step and the surface area of stairs we can calculate the height of the second story.  Today we also uncovered two more pillars for a grand total of five pillars and a grinding stone.  Our site had many unexpected findings.

After taking a more in-depth tour of Hippos I realized how advanced their aqueduct system actually is.  I am amazed at the engineering of the main cistern reservoir.  Water is the most important thing for any city.  In a place like Israel it is hard to come by.  For this reason, it was important for the city of Hippos to harness all the water they could get.

Continuing where we left of Tuesday, today we added one meter on each side of our square.  We were able to excavate down about two feet from ground level. 

We decided to add the new space in order to uncover the rock structure.  We believe now that it might be a stair case.  This would make sense given its size.  Two more columns and one grinding stone were also uncovered near the stair case. 

Today's agenda was to clean the wall of ruble and find, if any, a floor made of paving stones on the street.   We were able to remove all loose material from the wall and it left a rough estimate of the corner.  Also we were able to find one paving stone. 

With the ruble removed the corner of the wall was clear to see.  We think that an excavation group around 70 feet away is also excavating the same building but on another corner.  This would mean the building is quite large, but given the size of the wall it would make sense.  A paving stone was also uncovered today.  It seems to be up one level which means either it is one step up from the street or it is a stair way.  Tomorrow we will be uncovering what we think is another wall; if it is, a stairway could be possible.

Over the last couple of days I have been learning how to spot and identify different kinds of pottery.  All my field work helps me to understand the archaeology books that I read.