Three weeks down, three more to go! It's a busy week this week. National Geographic comes to film for a program they are doing on the Philistines. On Thursday we are having our first ever Community Day which will see a group of 40 or so students with their teachers and parents join us for a day of digging. Check back at the end of the week for some pictures and an update on this exciting day.
In the meantime, I believe I mentioned that there was something cool just behind Steve in the picture of him in his "potty pit." At long last, you can see what we have all been fascinated by since Steve found it!
This was the first look we had. Turns out, Steve had found a drain.
The kids were pretty sure that they were looking at a snake slithering its way through the drain. We assured them it was just a large root that had clearly thrived in the organic material filling the drain.
It is a major drain. One that we call a "walk through," meaning it is big enough that you could walk through it to clean it. We have yet to hit the bottom but we are hard at work trying to figure out where it is so that we can get the drain's full dimensions.
Here you can see Deland, our surveyor, trying to get a read on the drain and how far it might be go. The power of GIS is awesome! We have started dismantling the walls of the vertical shaft which probably served as some type of sewer intake. It connects to a tunnel with an east-west orientation.
I must admit, finding built space underground that is still intact is very, very cool. Never mind the fact that drains are always full of very interesting objects (once you drop something in, you aren't usually eager to fish it back out). I'll definitely update the blog when we learn something more.
I think that is it for now. A word of thanks to Steve's family who, he tells me, regularly reads the blog. Enjoy!