Hippos Excavations

2013 Season Details

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Excavation in the summer of 2013 begins on Sunday 30 June. The Concordia team will leave one week earlier (on Sunday 23 June) and arrive in Israel on 24 June. We will travel first to Jerusalem where we will stay for three nights on the Old City. We will tour Christian and archaeological sites there, visit the Israeli Museum (new home of the Tyche fresco), and travel both to Ein Kerem (home of John the Baptist) and Bethlehem.

On Thursday 27 June we will drive north to our base at Kibbutz En Gev. During the day on Friday, we will prepare the archaeological site for our season’s work and set up the lab. On Saturday 29 June, we will tour sacred and archaeological sites around the Sea of Galilee (Kursi, Bethsaida, Capernaum, Tabgha, and Chorazin).

After our first two weeks of digging, we will take an overnight trip on July 12 and 13 to the Dead Sea, visiting Qumran, Ein Gedi, and Masada. We return to the states on 26 July.

Our excavation work will begin in the Beta Building on the western side of the site. We will complete work on the assembly hall and the domestic space. During the second half of the season, I expect the team will be smaller, and we will carry out a number of small study projects (mapping two cisterns, opening the entrance to the House of Tyche near the church apse, finishing the eastern room begun last year, etc.)

Watch for more info.

 

Week 4

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A fourth week of digging and cleaning brought to an end the 2012 season on the Northeast Insula Project.

In the House of Tyche in the eastern zone, we partially exposed a room to the east of the peristyle court. Its southern section is a narrow space, possibly used for storage or serving the unexcavated space to the south (a triclinium?).

Southerly section of east room

This section of the room was separated by a window wall from the larger portion of the room to the north.

Window wall

The northerly section of the room is unfinished, but a shelf or high bench sites again its northerly wall.

Unfinished northerly section

In the beta building complex on the west side of the dig, we exposed part of the northerly room with a court yard in from of it.

North room and court yard

In the southeast corner of the court yard is a crude staircase leading to a second floor above the north room.

Stair case

Pottery and coins from the building suggest it was constructed in the Umayyad period and then abandoned before the earthquake of AD 749.

In the southern section of the Beta building is a large room with a double-sized entrance from the plaza to the east, in the center of which is a column.

Southern assembly? room

Again, we ran out of time before completing work on the room. But we did do a probe to the base of the column (60 cm below our stopping level).

Erin uncovers the base of the column

The column sits on a plaster floor.

Column on plaster floor

With a single large entrance from the plaza to the east, we speculate that the room was used for some kind of public assembly. We further assume that the court yard and room(s) to the north were domestic and may have housed a leader from those who assembled here. We hope that work in 2013 will bring use from speculation to answers.

The dig this years benefited from the hard work of many, including the following . . .

Laura
Laura, Erin, Lon, Geoff, Tom, and Jim
Darryl

Thanks to all for an interesting season!

Week 3

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With the departure of the Canadian team and other volunteers, the Concordia team is much smaller in Week 3 (eleven people). We are working solely in the Beta Building complex.

During this week we got a fuller sense of what appears to be an inner courtyard of the complex. It is some four by six meters in size and probably served a domestic function.

The full dimensions of the inner courtyard come into focus.

The courtyard is surfaced with re-used pavers and some building stones.

A domestic courtyard in the Beta Building complex

In a probe between the Alpha and Beta buildings, we sought evidence of an earlier stylobate that was part of the final floor of the Alpha Building. Did the stylobate extend to the north? How far?

We found the stylobate in the north wall of the Alpha Building.

Stylobate in the north wall of the Alpha Building

But all portions of the stylobate to the north were removed prior to the construction of the Beta Building complex. We posit that the stones were incorporated into various walls of that building.

No stylobate in the wall of the Beta Building

Rains from last winter had caused the collapse of the northwest corner of the Alpha Building. This week we put back into place two courses of the wall.

Wall repair

Work was challenging this week, but not without its lighter moments. Erin takes a bit of a rest in a stone feed box excavated by the team.

Erin takes a break.

The team moves into the final week of the dig starting on Sunday. We will be home on Friday, leaving behind challenges for future seasons and friends living in a very tense part of the world.