A short post today as we enjoy a lazy Saturday. Lots of broken pots in the Grid 47 sewer. The example below is one of many.
Coptic Glazed Ware bowl
2015 Field Season Day 34
Today was our last compound day of the season. Volunteers finished processing unclaimed pottery from Grid 50 and then it was on to washing and marking.
It's also the final weekend before the volunteers head home and many are off traveling. With one week to go, staff members are hard at work making sure field books are up to date, reports are getting started and that everything is in order. We have a few more days of digging and then it will be time to sweep ahead of final photos for each grid.
Wow, this season has flown by!
It's definitely Week 5
2015 Field Season Day 33
Earlier today we tweeted a picture of Rebekah holding a small object. What is it?
Bone doll found in Grid 47
It's a wonderful example of worked bone, in this case a doll, collected from a deep sewer shaft discovered in Grid 47. How much fun are sewers? Fun enough that Ben Felker hopped in to do a little digging (as did a number of other visitors to the grid).
Ben in the new sewer in Grid 47
Sewers are interesting because broken things get tossed in and other things get lost in them. You never know what you might find when you excavate one.
Piece of yellow and green glass from 47 sewer
2015 Field Season Day 32
It's almost the end of Week 5 which is really hard to believe. We're still working, however, and we're still having fun.
Jamaal does some stretching while excavating
Shimi does a little stretching while dumping guffahs
We are still finding objects, too.
Miranda and the oil lamp she found while excavating a sewer
2015 Field Season Day 31
Yesterday's party was wonderful. The Leonardo Hotel provided a great space and prepared a wonderful meal for us. Dig registrars Meghan and Katie put together a fantastic Finds Display. The highlight of the evening, as always, was celebrating the season and spending time with some special guests. Our patron Shelby White, her daughter Tracy (a young volunteer in 1985), and her granddaughter Suniva, attended the festivities.
Heather, registrar from 1985 - 2000, and Paula, zooarchaeologist 1985 - present
Heather, dig registrar from 1985 - 2000 surprised us with a visit. She and Paula told stories about life on the dig in 1985 and beyond. Carmella Shimoni, whose husband Musa worked with the excavation during the 1980s and 1990s, also stopped by for a visit. There was lots to see and do not the least of which was seeing everyone "cleaned up."
Grid 25/47
Coins found in Grid 25
Greek pottery found during excavation
Melissa, Ellie, and Adam enjoy the Finds Display
2015 Field Season Day 30
This afternoon everyone is relaxing ahead of our annual Finds Display and Party. The festivities start with a summation of the season by Co-director Daniel Master. The Finds Display, where some of the best objects from this season and last will be on display, follows. Finally, it's time for dinner. It's one of the best nights of the season and there will be pictures tomorrow.
Today, some images from around the excavation.
Meghan and Katie prepare objects for the Finds Display
Kevin holds a piece of folded lead found in Grid 51
Ethan excavates a plaster subfloor in Grid 47
2015 Field Season Day 29
What does it feel like to remove a cemented stone wall five meters long, a meter tall, and a meter wide? Like this:
Emily and Josh after a day of wall removal
Work was a little more straight forward in Grid 47 today where volunteers worked on digging a pit and tracing a plaster subfloor. After photographing the subfloor, we'll dig a probe and try to date it. Have we found the Roman period? We should know more soon.
Sweeping a plaster subfloor in Grid 47
Tomorrow is our annual Finds Display and Party. We'll post pictures of the festivities soon.
2015 Field Season Day 28
Happy 4th of July. As we enjoy the holiday weekend here in Ashkelon, here are some faces on the excavation.
2015 Field Season Day 27
Archaeology really is a group endeavor. The photographer needs some shade for a photograph? Well then, we provide some shade.
Providing shade in Grid 51
The volunteers are off to Masada and the Dead Sea. In house, much of the staff will be working on their various research projects, pottery, or writing reports. It promises to be a busy and, hopefully, relaxing weekend.
2015 Field Season Day 26
Images of 604 from Grid 51.
In Grid 16, the expansion earlier this week is paying off as more of their mudbrick wall is exposed. Now the task becomes establishing the date of the wall.
The move to Grid 47 also paid dividends. Today, staff worked to expose several walls and the plaster subfloors of at least two rooms. Full scale excavation begins on Sunday.
Tomorrow the volunteers are off to Masada and the Dead Sea ahead of Saturday's 4th of July holiday. Everyone is looking forward to a fun, relaxing two day weekend.
2015 Field Season Day 25
We are back in Grid 47!
White cement from a wall appearing in the dirt
We spent the day preparing a test trench for excavation tomorrow as we continue our search for more information about the urban core of Roman Ashkelon. The new trench is approximately 20 meters south of the odeon, located in the center of the park, and presents us with another opportunity to investigate the expansion of the city during the Roman period.
It may not look like much now but in a day or two, we expect to see walls.
Staff examine a possible grinding stone found while preparing Grid 47
It's very hot and very sunny in Grid 47 and hopes are high we will find something interesting. Stay tuned for more.
2015 Field Season Day 24
While the upper portion of Grid 16 was being expanded yesterday, Josh and his crew worked in the lower half of the grid.
Cleaning off stones in Grid 16
In Grid 51, they continued to uncover more destruction.
Exposing more destruction in 604
Excavating destroyed vessels
Today we also dug a test trench in an area south of the odeon in Grid 47. Tomorrow we will be digging a second tench as we search for the Roman period urban core.
2015 Field Season Day 23
After a very successful two week excavation in Grid 25, we backfilled it today. Before we did, we left some modern objects, small coins and a few strips of plastic, in the bottom of the trench so that future archaeologists would know that we had already excavated the area.
Backfilling Grid 25
Tomorrow we will dig a new test trench to the south of the odeon. There, we will continue to explore the Roman, Byzantine, Islamic and Crusader periods. Check back tomorrow to learn more about our new excavation area.
Dark clouds over Ashkelon
2015 Field Season Day 22
It was another morning of crazy weather in Ashkelon. This time, it did rain for a minute or two. Eventually the cool, windy morning gave way to sunshine and things got back to normal. Through it all, work continued.
Chris works to expose some animal bones in Grid 51
A "pot splat" in Grid 51
Tomorrow, Grid 16 will expand once again as the team tries to establish the full dimensions of the mudbrick wall they have exposed. And later in the week, we will dig a new test trench as we seek to better understand the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods here at Ashkelon.
2015 Field Season 21
A big thank you to all our first half volunteers, Gordie, Kathleen and Kim, who helped to make the first three weeks of our 2015 field season so successful! We look forward to seeing them again in the future. This afternoon, we welcome seven new volunteers for what promises to be a very exciting three weeks.
A few fun pictures as we enjoy a day off.
A quiet moment in Grid 51
Pottery laid out for cataloging
Daniel Master surveys Grid 51
2015 Field Season Day 20
It was another day of pottery in the compound. This time, we were working through crates of Grid 50 pottery. Grid 50 is most well known as the location of the market destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, the majority of Ashkelon's Persian period dog burials, and deep Islamic period robber trenches that dismantled the area's warehouses.
The first hour of work
The task was the same today as it was last week; to sort "unclaimed pottery" by period so that ceramicists working on specific periods (i.e. Roman or Hellenistic or Islamic) see and have access to all the pottery from their period of interest.
A volunteer consults with Becky about Greek pottery
Unsurprisingly, the majority of the pottery proved to belong to the Persian period. There was also a large amount of Islamic, from secondary contexts, Roman/Byzantine, and even some Hellenistic.
Volunteers sort bags of pottery
2015 Field Season Day 19
Some mornings you just find yourself marveling at the size and diversity of ancient Ashkelon. Venturing out to Grid 16 this morning, I wandered through this area of the park --in a word, beautiful. (Again we had rain clouds, and again, no rain fell.)
I turned the corner and found myself at Grid 16 where Josh, Emily and their crew of volunteers are doing some amazing work. Their effort follows on that of last year's group which launched the excavation area with the goal of identifying the occupational sequence on the North Tell.
Digging pits cut into the Grid 16 mudbrick wall.
Last year, Grid 16 was able to demonstrate the vertical cut through an outcropping of bedrock along the North Tell, long suspected to be a Crusader era moat, pre-dated the Hellenistic period. In fact, with evidence that the mudbrick wall they are uncovering is associated with the bedrock scarp, the thought is both features might be earlier. Much earlier. Perhaps as early as the Early or Middle Bronze Age.
To date the wall, the team needs to find a surface or another feature associated with the construction and/or use of the wall. As of this morning, the mudbrick wall fills their excavation area! There is no more room to dig, so it's expansion on Sunday.
Grid 16 -- rewriting the history of early Ashkelon?!?
Next week promises to be very exciting in Grid 16.
Grid 51 continues to get further and further into 604. We'll have more pictures next week.
Grid 25 is being closed on Sunday but the search for Roman period Ashkelon continues. Look for some news on that front next week.
Tomorrow we are back in the compound and then it's the weekend for us. We'll be saying farewell to our half-season volunteers, those here for the first three weeks, and welcoming another group who will be with us until the end of the season. It's hard to believe we are almost halfway through the season. Where does the time go?
2015 Field Season Day 18
Today we have some pictures from Community Day. Each year, we host a group of junior high and high school students on the excavation. The students learn about the archaeology and history of the city in which they live and our volunteers get an opportunity to share their new expertise.
A volunteer discusses some pottery with an Israeli student
The students excavated for two hours, ate breakfast with us, got a tour of the ancient site, and then washed some pottery. It was a fun day for everyone.
Laura, one of the Grid supervisors in 51, explains brushing.
Co-Grid Supervisor Jonathan Wylie and Ben move a big stone
A volunteer explains the dirt
2015 Field Season Day 17
Today it is all Grid 16 where they are uncovering more of their mudbrick wall every day. Approximately 6 meters of the mudbrick construction is uncovered and it shows every sign of continuing.
Digging brick mining pits in Grid 16
Picking down to mudbrick or bedrock, whichever comes first.
Dan, Kate and Josh discuss the pits cutting the mudbrick wall.
Finally, a great picture of Dan and Adam doing some heavy lifting.
2015 Field Season Day 16
Some great pictures from Grid 51 today.
Gordy excavates a beam
Chris holds a lamp
Laura examines a possible artifact
Kerrie Rovito, a teacher from Chicago working on our curriculum project, is now on site. She and co-director Daniel Master discussed ideas for the summer. Check back soon for new videos and fun projects on her blog for kids.
Dan and Kerrie discuss the summer's goals
We'll try to get some pictures of Grid 16 tomorrow. There might even be something from Grid 25 where the supervisors are digging some probes in an effort to better understand the sand uncovered previously.