Shalom Aliechem!
Well today we started digging again in XX99, and I was back with Darryl again, too! In our square it was Darryl, Anna, and myself, and Trevor was not with us at all today, because he felt sick, so he stayed back. We were a little short on people for our team today, but none the less we still made great progress.
Darryl told Anna and I to start taking the top dirt off as usual, because he had to help supervise Talal with the tractor. So we clear the dirt away on top of the door sill under the lintel stone. So after haling dirt out with turiyah in buckets, Anna continued that after breakfast, and I went over to the door sill, and started clearing the dirt. I finished and got to the basalt door frame, and swept it off. I started to follow the basalt down, and I cleared some of the dirt away even more. While I was sweeping the dirt, I turned up some tessera (pieces of mosaic floor), and these were not like ANY of the other tessera we have found earlier. So I kept sweeping very carefully, and moved more fine dirt. While sweeping I uncovered the corner of a mosaic floor!!! I turned to Anna and whisperer, 'I found a mosaic floor!' because we didn't want to draw too much attention to us, because if we did, then too people would come running, and we were also working right beside the Israeli conservators. Fortunately Dr. Schuler was right on top of the dig site, so we waved him over to us. Showed him the floor, and he was very excited! He told us to keep taking up the dirt, and expose the rest of the floor! So we did, and this was the most exciting thing so far that has happened, not including the trips we have taken!!! Anna and I were going crazy with excitement as we dug up more and more dirt, more and more mosaic floor was underneath!!
Anna and I went as far as we could, and as far as we were told. So we stopped. It was very hard to stop at such an exciting moment!! But, it was getting close to noon, and Anna had to go do surveying. So I decided to sweep off the rest of the fine dirt that was on top of the mosaic floor. As I did that I noticed some black mosaic pieces, and white mosaic pieces. Being that close the colors had not real importance to me at the time, I just thought it was neat to see two different kinds of mosaic. Little did I know, when I stood up to move to another spot in this tight area, I had a more broad view, and noticed that the black and white were not just ordinary pieces placed in the floor, but in the floor was an inscription!!!! :D So, after finding a mosaic floor, and trying to keep it quiet, I had found an inscription, and I was by myself with no one from my team! So Darryl was the closed to me by that time, and I said, 'Boss, come here!' and instantly Darryl radioed Dr. Schuer to come over to XX99! Dr. Schuler came and his face was beaming just as much as mine was! He said, and I quote, "This is absolutely fantastic, this is ABSOLUTELY fantastic!...This is incredible!!" He asked for a margin chisel, and started scrapping off the top, and also used water and a brush to clean away at each letter! It was in Greek capital letters, so I knew some of it, but not all because I didn't know most of the capital letters. As he did that I wiped away the mud with some wet wipes, and I joking said to Darryl, 'It says welcome to our home!' and just after I said that Dr. Schuler stared reading it and the first word actually said welcome. There is two lines of letters, and even more that we did not put water on yet! We will be clearing it all off tomorrow! So excited!!
Dr. Schuler then gave me a 'high-five' on the bus as we went done from Hippos!!! THAT WAS AWESOME!!!! And when we got back he gave me a pat on the shoulder saying, "Yep, you are never going to be able to do that in a classroom!"
We had devotions tonight, and I was scheduled to lead. The suggested theme was
Matthew 15:29-39, and I have to admit I have only done music for worship, and readings, but never planned the whole thing before, and led it all. I was a little nervous! Until then.
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