There are two things we love in Grid 47 more than anything else. Here Mei and Neil contemplate one of them, walls. We have Hellenistic period walls constructed out of large blocks laid horizontally and then vertically in alternating courses. We have large Roman period walls, those of the early Roman basilica and bouletarian and those of the later 2nd/3rd century odeon that are constructed out of cut ashlars over which cement was poured. And then we have Islamic period walls, such as the one in the picture, constructed out of stones stolen from the earlier Roman walls. The latest walls in the grid came from a Crusader period wine vat.
What we do not have are a lot of floors. We currently have two exposed floors, both are mosaic floors which date to the Byzantine period. One is made of plain white tiles, the second of marble and ceramic tiles.
The other thing we love? Dark places under ground. From the sewer and the well to the sumps and stone lined pits, dark places under ground have a strong pull on the imagination. More than one volunteer in the grid has expressed a willingness to jump in, even not knowing what might lie below. Yesterday, one of our new volunteers, Zach, announced that he had a hole and we all looked on eagerly. Sure enough, there was a hole. What it is we don't yet know but we will have fun the next couple of days speculating until we excavate far enough to get the actual answer.
In Grid 51 work continued on Persian period floors. In Grid 38 work continued on the Philistine era house under excavation. We'll try to have pictures tomorrow to update everyone on the work going on in those grids.