We’re about halfway through our excavation season now. The weather has been amazing–a bit warmer than usual but cool in the mornings and (most importantly), very little wind that might otherwise blow dust in our eyes all day. This also means that our photos all show a sky that is brilliant blue rather than dusty grey.
We have been following the big street through the settlement on the East Mound that we first discovered last year. The street was used around the 1st century BCE – 1st century CE.
We have now traced it for a distance of about 80 meters and have been exposing buildings on either side as we go. These buildings are all big and many of them are preserved only as foundations. But this year we have found one building that has pots in place and we have just cleared an area of about 20 x 20 meters of it.
The view from the top shows a smaller street or alleyway running beneath the building, the larger street getting wider as it goes to the south, and a group of 3 cooking pots in a small room at left center of the photo.
We expected the street to continue into the next square to the south, but we didn’t find it right away–we had to dig through almost a meter (3 feet) of sand to find any preserved architecture. That suggests that we are digging on the surface of what used to be a mound, but now looks flat because sand has been blown against the edge of it.
All that sand dips down about 80 meters to the south (just past the grasses) and we think that’s the end of the ancient settlement. My guess is that somewhere around there we will find remains of an ancient river channel or canal (which we had found traces of elsewhere last season). That could make this big street a kind of commercial street leading to (perhaps) an area of docks or wharves. It will take more excavation to see if all this is right!
