Excavation Reports by S. Gibson

Two seasons of digging were undertaken this year at the Mount Zion (Ayyubid Gate) site between 8th June and 24th July 2008. The team consisted of Shimon Gibson and James Tabor (Project Directors), Rafi Lewis (Field Director), Mareike Grosser (Site Manager) and Yusuf Kholesy (foreman). Warren C. Schultz (DePaul University) was in charge of numismatics and participated in the excavations as well. Additional consultants included Ram Bouchnik (archaeozoology) and Eric C. Lapp (lamps). The ground-penetrating radar work was conducted by Jessie P.-Avraham of Mnemotrix Geo-archaeological Support Team.

The excavation is being conducted on behalf of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Sponsors included the Guttman Foundation, and The Foundation for Biblical Archaeology. Licenses for the work were received from the Israel Antiquities Authority (G-12/2008) and the Israel Parks Authority (1673/08).

Numerous visits were made to the site by archaeological colleagues, among them Jodi Magness, Hillel Geva, Meir Ben Dov, Ephraim Stern, Robert Kool, and others. We are grateful for their support and enthusiasm. We also had visits by members of the Israel Antiquities Authority (Gideon Avni, Zvi Greenhut, and Jon Seligman), and of the Israel Nature & National Parks Protection Authority (Tsvika Tzuk and Avitar Cohen).

Excavations – Week One (15th – 20th June 2008)

The summer season actually began on 8th June with the removal of a number of dangerous earthen walls (baulks) from Broshi’s excavations of the 1970s on the western side of the area. This work was conducted by Yusuf with archaeological supervision, before the arrival of the first group of team members. The work with the team members began on 15th June with a general cleaning of the site, with the removal of vegetation and garbage. This was tough work but it had to be done. Digging concentrated during the first week in Field H with work following on directly from that previously made in the March season. It was decided to dismantle one of the walls in this area (W226) after recording it in drawings and photography, since it seemed to be a later addition to the main wall (W190). Within the matrix of the wall were two coins and a polished bone implement fragment. We also sought to find the extension of W190 to the south with some success. To the west, we decided to remove the modern garden fill (L133) so as to attempt to clarify the stratigraphy of the area excavated last March and the area that was excavated nearby in the 2000 season. This revealed the ashlars from the Ayyubid tower that were pushed here in the early 1980s when the Jerusalem municipality decided to establish a path with steps next to the Old City wall. In Field F immediately to the south-west of Field H, we began clearing away a fill (L161) which seemed to precede the modern activities in the area connected with the construction of the adjacent modern street. We also renewed the excavation of an area previously dug in 2000 which had a layer packed with pottery from the Second Temple period (L229), including metal fragments, nails, and a coin, and stone vessel and lamp fragments.  


Excavations – Week Two (22nd – 27th June 2008)

The team members began settling down to the job of excavating the various features during the second week of digging. This week certain wall stubs in Field H were removed, revealing a variety of features below them: foundation trenches, walls with a different orientation (e.g. W239), and packed consolidation walls and pits. Very confusing, but each feature needed to be carefully excavated and recorded. The material from every dismantled feature was also sieved which slowed down the work, but the finding of coins and other small finds showed that it was worthwhile. The amount of stones and rubble in all directions was bewildering, and we began appreciating the difficulties Kenyon had with her own work in Jerusalem in the 1960s with trying to keep straight sections with so many stones around. In the area to the west we found what seemed to be a terrace wall (W235) of Abbasid or Fatimid date, just below the Ayyubid cistern, and below it a floor with the negative of a robbed-out wall (L245) with a coin mixed with its backfill. On the floor were polished bone implements and coins. Locus 229 continued to provide vast quantities of Second Temple (first century) pottery, with the occasional special find, such as an iron nail and a carbonized olive pit. The foundation trench with packed stones around the cistern opening in this area was kept as a distinct area and separated from the fill of L229. Cleaning and clarification of the various fills and debris layers in the various parts of the dig continued. A tile stamped by the Roman Tenth Legion was also found.


Excavations – Week Three (29th June – 4th July)

A new group of team members joined us for this two week period. A new wall appeared in Field H (W258) which seemed to have another wall (W238) abutting it from the north. Field H continued to be characterized by rubble layers, multiple foundation trenches and consolidation layers. The wall beneath W190 which was labeled W238 was also removed this week. A number of beads were found, as well as the base of a large stone vase (qalal) from the first century. A robber’s trench (L259) for a corner of an Umayyad wall appeared in the area on the south-west, and a coin was found in its backfill. Within this wall was a mosaic floor with simple black-and-red floret decorations, and with a circular sump in the corner. We also extended the area even further to the south-west to join up with an area excavated by Broshi in the 1970s. This area had large quantities of modern rubbish in it, but we carefully separated the layers as individual loci. Eventually we got down to the stone and mortar base of a mosaic floor (L276) that Broshi apparently uncovered in the 1970s. Coins continued emerging in the different parts of the excavation.

 
Excavations – Week Four (6th – 11th July)

In the area outside the robbed-out wall surrounding the mosaic floor fragment, we came across a thick layer of yellow-brown fill with Abbasid pottery and fragments of black platters with incised decorations on their exteriors. There was also an iron knife handle on a segment of plastered floor. An interesting square plaster box-like depression was found next to the mosaic floor and to its west. In the area of Broshi’s trench we descended to quite a depth, finding modern plastic bags all the way down mixed with a tumble of well dressed stones, to what appears to be the top of an ancient wall. The depth of the deposits here meant that we had to cease work until next year when we remove some of the dangerous adjacent garden fills. In Field H we continued descending through the Second Temple fills (L249) on the west side of the wall and foundation features, as well as through the fills on the north side (L282). It became clear that the wall features we had excavated in association with the mosaic floor fragments were of Umayyad date, whereas there were wall foundations of Byzantine date beneath the underlying fills, with additional wall tops below which might be of first century date. Finds included Murex shells, one of which was pierced with a hole, coins and stone vessel fragments. Numerous coins were found proving sieving to be a worthwhile activity.


Excavations – Week Five (13th – 18th July)

The third group joined us this week. We decided to use week five of the dig to clarify stratigraphical problems. In Field H we decided to examine some of the features uncovered by excavation and by a process of the dismantling of suspected foundation trenches and consolidation fills. It became clear that many of the consolidation walls in this area were actually built in the Byzantine period with fills added between the walls to level out the area taken from elsewhere. These fills contained largely first century period potsherds, with a small quantity of Late Roman potsherds found there as well. The walls continued descending and are quite impressive. One wall has a length of at least seven or eight meters and has a plastered exterior! The collapsed rubble and dressed stones on the east side of W266 and W239 were removed and the fills beneath were exposed. We also decided to continue excavating the northernmost square in Field H where work had been suspended in March 2008. Numerous finds were made in this area, including coins, a piece of amber and other special objects. A stone lid of the first century “stopper” variety was found but with an unusual incised decoration. A disturbance in the shape of a pit was detected in this area with a fragment of skull.  


Excavations – Week Six (20th – 25th July)

The pit in the northernmost part of Field H was cleared and sieving produced a number of small finds including a button and a fused bone. At the base of the walls and compact fills, within the main area, cleaning showed that we might finally be down to structures from the Second Temple period. Further south the rubble deposits were cleaned to the east of the main wall. Rafi found here a small bronze Christian cross, probably a pendant. Digging proceeded in the area to the west, revealing thick fills containing Second Temple pottery, but walls are still not evident. The modern metal pipe which we had been told was no longer in use suddenly turned into a fountain of water. Apparently gardeners from the Jerusalem municipality decided to open up the pipe without first checking whether this was wise and whether the pipe was still functioning. The end of the dig meant a lot of cleaning, baulk trimming, and “articulation” of the stones of walls for the site plan and photography. Hard work but everybody was satisfied with the result.  


Summary of the Summer Excavations

Excellent results were obtained during this season of excavations. Very well preserved buildings dating from the first century CE were found overlying bedrock (and earlier remains?). These structures were destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans, and the area remained a field of ruins until the early Byzantine period. A few stamped roof tiles of the Tenth Legion were found. Large buildings which may have been associated with the Nea Church existed in the area, but the neighborhood was rebuilt during the early Islamic period. What is clear is that the stratigraphy of the site is much more complicated than we had assumed. In order to get a better understanding of the habitation layers and the layout of buildings the area of the dig needs to be expanded. This will be the object of the planned 2009 season.

Also take a look back at what happened on Mount Zion in March 2008!  

Mount Zion Excavations - Week One (2nd - 7th March 2008)

We began the first week of digging with many expectations, but getting the dig organized in the first place was exhausting and we spent a number of frantic days running around buying tools and equipment, sorting out the paperwork and the excavation registration system, and having a barrel-vaulted temporary structure with plastic sheeting set up over part of the area just in case it rained during the dig. Licenses had been received from the Israel Antiquities Authority (G-12/2008) and the Parks Authority (1615/08). The team consists of Shimon Gibson and James Tabor (Project Directors), Rafi Lewis (Field Director Fields E, H) and Egon H.E. Lass (Field Director Field B), Mareike Grosser (Site Manager) and Yusuf as our foreman. The excavation is conducted on behalf of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. There are a number of sponsors including the Guttman Foundation and Sheila Bishop and The Foundation for Biblical Archaeology. Dov Porotsky set up the measurements of the surrounding excavation lines, baulks and fences, and established a series of Fields of excavation (A-H).

The first day was spent cleaning the areas where we wanted to dig, removing baulks between the squares in Field H, and drawing the baulks that were to be removed in Field B. The first few days of an excavation are always the most difficult and after that a certain routine sets in. In Field H our objective was to remove the collapsed stone debris in Square Q18 which we did, bringing to light a jamb-stone, a threshold fragment and a column shaft.  We thought that the underlying surface might be the original early 14th century ground surface, but it rapidly became clear that this was a modern surface, probably from the early 1980s. Having removed this hard surface and the fill within a pit extending along the side of the squares which was also modern in date, we began digging down through a brown rubble fill which appeared to be ancient. In addition to these activities we also cleared away the topsoil and rubble piles along the south-eastern side of Squares N17 to O18 bringing to light a rubble pile under a layer of soil which was apparently created by workers in the original excavations at the site in the 1970s. Up in Field B on the west side of the excavation area a cobble surface was uncovered which may have been contemporary with the foundations of the mid-sixteenth century city wall. Samples of soil were taken for flotation.

There was not much real archaeology during the first week of excavations, but there was a lot of enthusiasm from the team workers and it was greatly appreciated.

During the second week a different tactic was adopted in the upper Field B. Instead of digging the tops of the baulks stratigraphically we felt compelled to take safety considerations first and to remove the top portions drastically so that the lower portions could be excavated carefully but without fear of collapse. A number of interesting artifacts emerged including an iron catapult head and a bone inlay segment decorated with floral motifs.

In Field H a rubble fill emerged below the brown fill with a concentration of crushed amphorae and other pottery vessels in the center and with a fragmentary plastered channel along one side extending down to a cistern opening in Square P17. A sunken stone-lined basin was also found within the rubble base and it was full of pottery and other artifacts, including a few coins. A sample of soil was taken for flotation. Many coins were found in the adjacent fills, and the finding of coins became almost a regular feature of the excavation as it progressed.

One of the main logistical problems of the excavation is the removal of the soil and rubble dug out of the site. On average we have been removing 14 cubic metre bags (balot) of material every day, all of which has to be hauled out of the site by crane and then taken away by truck to a municipal dump.

 Mount Zion Excavations - Week Three (16th - 21st March 2008)

Having established the Byzantine date for the stone-line basin and the surrounding rubble fill in Field H, we decided to record the various features in drawing and photography and then to remove them. This meant the dismantling of the wall foundation (W176) and three of the external walls of the basin and its cobbled floor. We were hoping for a nice cache of coins under the cobbled floor, but none was found. The surrounding rubble fill did provide us however with a variety of finds, including part of a lock mechanism and a number of coins. Immediately below the wall foundation we exposed the top of another wall (W190) and began descending on both sides, clarifying robbed out areas as separate loci. One large pit beneath the stone-lined basin was packed with Second-Temple period pottery, animal bones and a fragment of a stone jar. Rafi has been working hard clarifying the stratigraphy of this area.  

In the northernmost part of the area we had high hopes of finding a medieval surface but none was found. Eventually we got down to a level with clear signs of the "scoops" in the ground created by a mechanical back-hoe probably in the early 1980s. Hence, we decided to leave everything below for excavation next Summer.

In Area B Egon has been removing the distinguishable layers one-by-one, finding post-Abbasid medieval fills. On the other side of the area we have been clearing enormous amounts of modern garbage/rubbish which has accumulated there since the early 1980s.  

The site was entered one afternoon by a man who began digging holes in the ground until he was spotted by one of the team members who just happened to be passing by. Luckily he didn't do too much damage. 

Excavations – Week Four (23rd - 28^th March 2008)

Further headway was made in Field H in this final week of the dig. Team members made a valiant attempt to reach the targets set by the expedition, working above and beyond the call of duty. Egon had completed his work up in Field B and joined us down in Field H since Rafi was abroad. First, it became clear that the garden fills of the 1980s on the east of the area are quite deep and that to the south-east the area had been cut away, presumably at the time of the construction of the adjacent modern road. It was here that a pit cut by bulldozers was discerned: L198.  This week we were able to clarify the appearance of the stonework of W190 and to map it. Stephen Rosenberg also made a map of the area. Work continued on either side of W190, i.e. to its east and west, revealing an interesting phenomenon of Byzantine fills on one side (L194) and re-deposited Early Roman fills on the other (L199), with rich finds: pottery, coins and fragments of painted plaster.  The small wall stub seen last week (W192) was further exposed this week and runs from north to south for about four meters where it seems to meet up with another wall. The interior side of this wall was coated with plaster its entire length. Is this the top of a wall from the Second Temple period? We decided to leave the excavation of this interesting wall to next season.