Recently in Dig trip Category

Things were really quite interesting today in our A1 square. For the last few days we have been uncovering a cistern and just last Thursday (which is the end of the week-aka we dig from Sunday to Thursday) we found the beginnings of a Corinthian Capital. This style of capital has the ornate acanthus leaves decorating them. You can see a picture below. But today all of these finds came around and we got most of them wrapped up. As we hit the bottom of the square we also realized that there is a large paved stone floor and Dr. Schuler is hypothesizing, based on many factors, that there is a large room here which had massive stone arches to hold the ceiling. Here are some pictures of the process.

This is the beginning of the cistern find.

This picture was taken right before breakfast today. The cistern is finally dug out.

This is our nice floor that was uncovered in the last half hour of the day.

This is one of the column sections being lifted out.

This is the capital and a column section after being lifted out.

Well thats about all. I'll keep you posted as things progress this last week.

This was a long, but amazing three day trip just across the border to the East of Israel. On the first day as we were making our way down to Petra in the south we stopped at 3 sites.

The first stop was Jerash. Jerash is one of the ancient Roman Decapolis cities. When first walking into the city there is the famous arch know as Hadrian's Arch. The city was complete with a massive oval forum where the market place would have been as well as many temples to various Roman gods and an amphitheater.

This picture is a panoramic I took of the oval forum. The ancient Roman columns are so impressive to see.

Next up on the tour south was Mt. Nebo. This site commemorates the event where Moses looked upon the promised land but wasn't allowed to enter it. What a view! Just to the left of the view (aka south west) you can see the dead sea and our tour guide Sammi said that on a clear day you can actually see Jerusalem. Thats impressive realizing that this site is in Jordan.

In this picture of me you can see the Dead Sea in the background. This was unfortunately the closest I will get to the Dead Sea on this trip. But again, this view thought the camera lens pales in comparison to actually looking over the Jordan River valley.

The final stop on our journey the first day was the Church at Madaba. This church had a beautifully preserved mosaic of the Dead Sea area as well as the Jordan River Valley.

There were other places stopped at on the trip but by far the highlight of the trip was Petra. Indiana Jones anyone? I have so many pictures of Petra I'm having a really hard time sorting through the few I want to post. These pictures are just an overview of some of the general areas that can be seen at Petra.

When first entering the park you have to walk through a long narrow canyon.

This next picture of the treasury is by far the most famous sight in Petra, thanks mostly to Indiana Jones.

This next site was a royal tomb that was converted into a church. The solid rock structure gave this site excellent acoustics and thanks to Christine I heard one of the most beautiful doxologies I have ever heard and probably will ever hear.

The last bit of pics was taken from the area near the monastery. This site was quite the hike to get to but the view was amazing!

This is the monastery itself.

At the very top of the peak on the right there is a building over the site where Aaron was buried. That thought had me pretty awestruck.

Finally I will leave you with a picture of me taking in the view from the top. It's all sky and mountain at this point. God's Blessings.

First I apologize for getting a little behind in my blogs. We had a three day weekend trip to Jordan and we had no internet the whole trip. That was an amazing trip and I'll do a post on that next. For now lets talk about dig week 2.

It was a great finish to the week. Our team finished square number 2. Which is just in time since most of the group is Canadian and they are all leaving after the weekend. It was a great time getting to know our brothers and sisters to the north. Here are just a few pictures of the finished square.

Idle tools leaning on the beautiful Sally Westwall and the mostly destroyed wall named Harry.

Quinn admiring his 2 trench that he put 2 days worth of work into it's completion.

Jenn at the end of the day, probably trying to figure out how she's going to get out of the pit.

As for the other groups, the A section of the dig still has a lot of work to do, so I will probably be in their group next week. In E8 they have finished their work and are moving to other places that will be defined next week. D5 is continuing a deep probe in their square and are starting to find what could be a road or floor.

This has been your dig update for week 2 and I'd like to end the post with a salute to the Canadians. I really enjoyed working with them and they will be missed. So, here's to you Canada...A.

Well the heat is getting to all of us and it's starting to show. The songs and conversations are getting weirder by the day, yet progress is being made. In our group just yesterday we were making lyrics for the "Budweiser: Real Men of Genus" series using the title "Here's to You Mr. Amateur Archaeologist." Once the song becomes presentable I'll share it with the world...if the world is ready?

In our new square just across the road we are finding some interesting wall configurations. For some reason we have a few walls stacked right up next to each other, literally 6 inches apart. We have a few crazy theories but nothing credible or plausible. Oh and the walls have names. The wall you see on the top left of the first picture is Sally; it's also important to note that Quinn is quite proud of that wall. The other wall on the top right is Harry (where Harry met Sally). On the next picture you will find Wally and Wallita.

In the A zone of the dig they are making some progress finding anything that may appear behind the alter area of the church.

Over in E0 they are essentially done digging their "deep probe", they hit bed rock and really didn't want to go further.

And I really don't need to mention the progress in D5, their square is still full of a bunch of crazies. :) Actually they are right next to us and we fill the day by hurtling insults and demeaning comments about the quality of each others work through the humid, hot air. This picture of Steph says it all. (off the record they are making huge progress in finding a floor and opening a doorway)

This is just a quick post to draw your attention back to my first post. I finally got around to resizing the images to a manageable size, so if you desire you can go back and check out the first post.

Bet She'an

Bet She'an was a stunning Roman City which was completely excavated and restored to get a feel for what it would have been. It had an impressive colonnaded street running through the center of the city with remains of bathhouses, markets and a theater. On the North-West side of the city there was a large hill that we hiked to get a full view of the city. This hill site was also the place where Saul and his sons were hung after being defeated by the Philistines. The story is in 1 Samuel 31. After realizing that the hillside I was standing on happened to be the same hillside mentioned in 1 Samuel I was blown away just by the fact that I was at such an ancient and historic place. I have read about places in the bible my whole life, but actually being there was just indescribable.

This first picture is a panoramic taken at the top of the hill. You can really get a sense of the city with this angle.
F.Y.I: I plan on having a blog soon with a few panoramic pictures of the Sea of Galilee at Sunset and the Sea of Galilee in the Day. I'm still finishing up the Photoshop work, but they will be awesome when I get them done. So keep a look out for those.

Zippori

This is another Roman city with some of the main attractions being a massive underground cistern and pipeline, a synagogue, and especially the mosaics. The mosaics were absolutely stunning and the worst part for you bloggers is a camera hardly does justice to how they look in real life. The most famous mosaic is located in the Dionysus house. This lady is known as the "Mona Lisa of Zippori."

First I figured I'd start this post off with a picture of the hill where Hippos/Sussita is located.

Well It's been one week in the dig out of four and some remarkable progress in each of the areas. In our area, square E6, we found nothing but a destroyed wall and after digging a 2 meter pit we found no floor either. I must say that lifting 250 pound rocks over your head is no walk in the park.

The square next to us, E8, has uncovered some awesome finds. So far they have a nice stone floor, which is a road, and just yesterday they found a cistern. They also keep unearthing impressive columns, one of which can be seen in the picture below.

In A0 on the other side of the dig, which would be the NE corner, they are uncovering a really well built wall and possibly a mosaic floor in one of the side corners of their 5 meter square.

As for D5, the square which found the amulet on the first day, they haven't found much else but brown gold. It's just been dirt and rocks, and very large rocks. Now they are digging down another foot or two to see if they can't find a floor.

In E1's square they have started to do a narrow "deep probe". Which means they keep digging down until Dr. Schuler tells them to stop. They are trying to find anything that might be under the church. There could have been a Roman temple that the North East Church was built on top of.

Finally, we get to E6. Our square was looking very promising with a strong wall being uncovered but now the wall is looking more and more damaged from the earthquake. The wall never really was uncovered very well and not much of a defining wall was found except on the outside edge facing the street. Like I mentioned earlier we dug down almost 2 meters and never found a floor. Next week we will get a new square, I'll keep you posted on that progress.

First, I must confess that the pictures turned out weird in the first post. Now that I've got a feel for the blog software this one should be much better. Here is day 3.

Things are really starting to take shape at the dig site. All of the areas have been making great progress and some awesome finds are starting to be uncovered. Yesterday the site right next to us found a Byzantine glass necklace with a lion on it, which happens to be a major find. See the picture on Dr. Schuler's blog using the link here (Amulet). The other group just to the south of us found a wall chunk that could connect to a Roman triple arch that was uncovered last year about 10 meters away.

In our site, named E6, we have started to uncover a wall which may end up being the corner of a major building. The first picture is the first day before any work started and the second picture was taken towards the end of day 3. The group of people I'm working with is below. From left to right their names are Jenn, Andy, Quin, Me and Katie (our fearless leader).

WOW!! What a day...up at 4, dig until you don't need sunblock because the dirt is covering your body, then wash off in the Sea of Galilee. We finished off the day with a service on the beach and I'm doing this post from the Sea. Crazy! There are 5 dig sights right now that may have possible goodies about 1 meter down. We just won't know until we've dug it all out, but thats the gamble I guess. Although one site found a Roman coin on the first day which is very rare. It's getting exciting!

Here are pictures of the 5 dig sites.

I apologize. The internet is going very slow and my pics won't load tonight. I will just have to put them on tomorrow.

This is the first full day in Israel and we took a tour around the Sea of Galilee today. First we went to the Hippos Dig site on the east side and got a small orientation about what were doing tomorrow. There are going to be three main dig areas and we'll start that process tomorrow at 4:00 AM, or roughly 8:00 PM for those of you back in the states.

The next stop was Kursi National Park. This was the site commemorating the casting of the demons into the swine. There is no absolute evidence that it happened here but this has historically been recognized as the site.

Then we continued on to Capernaum on the north side of the sea. We toured the sites where Jesus grew up and saw a few of the old synagogues in the town. There was also the excavated site of Peter's house and there was a church built over the site with a glass floor to see the house itself.

After Capernaum we continued on our way around the sea and stopped at Tebgha. This site commemorated the first feeding of the five thousand. The Byzantine Church in the picture was built over an older church.

The last site of the day was the Beatitudes commemorating the site of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. There was a church built at the site and there were mosaics build depicting each of the lessons taught by Jesus.