Around the Dead Sea

Photo 1 - Today I dug up 505 pottery sherds in an area 1m square and about 150mm deep, just about setting a dig site record. About 3000 years ago someone had a smashing time and a good clean up dumping broken pottery vessels beside a foundation wall I'm digging down beside. Of the 505 sherds 28 were kept for diagnostic purposes, and the rest were dumped in a pile and left for an archeoligist in another 3000 years to work out why they were dumped like that. What goes round comes round as they say.

Photo 2 - Yesterday I mentioned Herod the Great's Dead Sea Harbour at Callirhoë. This picture is taken from where the bottom of the harbour was in Herod's time down the cliff to the present level of the Dead Sea. Local power company workers thought it was a good place to dump their junk.

Photo 3 - Another view of the decline in the level of the Dead Sea. The road we were on went along the top terrace which 20 years ago was under water.

Photo 4 - a shot of the rugged desert mountains that border the Dead Sea. Taken at Lot's Cave.