A Day in Square 21SS

The Tall el-Hamman archeological site is surveyed into over 13,000 6x6m squares. I think less than 100 have been dug on. I have been digging for 3.5 weeks in square 21SS. Photo 1 was taken this morning first thing. It is already for the photo documentation by the official photographer. The wall is about the 6th wall we have found, and this one was constructed in stages at different times, maybe hundreds of years apart. The flat bit to the right is "Peter's Floor" which I "discovered" last week. It is the hardest packed floor we have found so far and as it is associated with the main part of the wall so is around the 3,000 year old mark. There were four floor layers above it that we have already "disconstructed". We think that immdediately below it is the Middle Bronze Age Layer - the time of Abraham.

Photo 2 is of what happens to 3,000 year old walls that are doscovered by archeologists. I help pull them down so we can get to what is below them. It's an interesting feeling destroying something that some chaps sweated over building so long ago. The other guy in the photo is Josh Harrington, my square supervisor. Josh is Australian, studying archeology at Tel Aviv University, and does 2-3 digs a year.

Photo 3 is a door way socket. We have found a number of these. In big buildings doors were hung on round poles and the poles were sloted into the sockets top and bottom. The ones we have found have all been reused in the Iron Age walls as part of the wall, meaning that they were originally from a large MB building, probably below us somehwere.

Photo 4 is Dr David Graves will a small Iron Age jug dug out whole today.

Photo 5 taken at pack up time about 3pm today. This is part of our working view. The suns rays coming through the clouds reflecting on the Dead Sea. Beats anything in Invercargill!

Tomorrow we finish wrecking the wall and dig up the floor. Not sure what other scientific discpline destroys the evidence as it goes.