Day 3

We started excavating today! We had two groups working in two trenches, Trench 1 and 2.

Trench 1 was located within  the building and was slightly smaller in size so that we are not excavating over the part of the vaulted ceiling still standing. Salah, Alaa and Nourah were working in this trench and did a great job of taking off the overburden, revealing a part of what we think is the collapsed vaulted ceiling from the other side and what we think may be a floor surface. Jad, Talfan, Mauro and Hussein started work in Trench 2, revealing the outer wall of the structure and how it connected to the thick walls of the reservoir. More debris was encountered in this area as well, presumably from the collapse of the structure itself. Additionally Lesley continued to teach the students in turn how to use the survey equipment and recorded the grid set out the day before, as well as the extent of the trenches and what we had found within them. We spent the majority of the day taking off overburden and therefore most of the finds were modern, however, we did have some unstratified pottery from many different periods and an Israeli Lira from 1979! Not a bad way to start and the trenches looked great at the end of the day!

With a day off looming the next day, some of the group went home, while the rest of us hit downtown Jericho for a few beers and some Nigella. The next day we hiked down Wadi Qelt, which was fantastic, but took about 7 hours and by the end our legs were killing us. Maybe wasn't the best idea for a day off but we did see some cool archaeology, including Herod's Palace, and some great scenery. Just some of the great stuff we can do while we are here!