After Ramat Rahel was excavated in the 50's and 60's, the 'entrance' to the citadel, that is the focus of our site's work, had a retaining wall added to it that included stones and concrete to hold the old flooring together. Yesterday some of us (OK, the men using pick axes) tore down the retaining wall. Today we began to dismantle the retaining stones and concrete around the original stones. [Now I know what being sentenced to hard labor feels like as I used my small pick-axe to break up concrete and pry stones loose.]
The second half of the work day Jim and I were assigned the task of creating a clean, vertical face to the material formerly hidden by the wall. This task greatly increased my bucket count!
In the photo, you can see a dark brown base of soil and then immediately above that a white line formed from limestone. This is an ancient floor - probably from the Iron age (7th century BCE) and it sits several feet below the flooring the earlier excavator believed to be the Iron age floor. Didn't Jim do a good job? The task is made a little difficult by the loose nature of the limestone flooring as even a small disturbance would cause it to cascade down over the brown soil below it.
Wow. You know that feeling you get when you see a picture of a site from a long time ago... like pictures of bowling green with horse drawn carriages on main street. And you go, "gee thats awesome, I'm standing right where that was!"
ReplyDeleteWell, you just helped dig out a 'picture' from the Iron age!!! So I am reading this, thinking, Iron Age? Really? Wow! And you are complaining about the limestone being difficult. ha. I guess you are a professional at this now, so maybe you just aren't allowed to get excited about a simple Iron Age floor. After all, those are everywhere.
Love you Mom. Sounds like you're enjoying it. Keep up the updates, I enjoy them.