Givati Parking Lot

July 1 - 2, 2013  Monday and Tuesday

We only took one photo on Monday!  That shows you how dedicated we are to our work.  Now we have job titles.
Pete:  Dirt manager
Angie:  Pottery-washing supervisor and tea specialist.

I should comment on our "finds".  We've been asked not to talk specifically about them because there will be a press release after the dig.  Suffice it to say that there has been A LOT of pottery, ranging from Iron Age to Roman-era to Byzantine to the various Islamic periods.  The second most common find (in terms of bulk) has been bones and teeth from camels, cattle, sheep, poultry, etc.  About 150 coins have been found.  We've found plenty of Roman glass and quite a few shells (snails and seashells).  The emerging stone structures have held some surprises, too.

After the dig day on Monday, we went to the Armenian Museum for another class on pottery reading.  This was a repeat of the class held two weeks ago when the students were here.  I was glad to hear this one, since I missed the class two weeks ago.  Here's our photo of the day, taken in the Armenian Museum.   The bearded man is Karsten.  His wife Gabi is looking through pottery at the table.  Gabi just joined us this past weekend, but Karsten has been here the whole time.  They are from Cologne, Germany.  During this second half of the dig, there are several married couples and also a few teenaged offspring.

One the way back to the hotel from the pottery class, Pete's iPod was stolen from his backpack.  He doesn't usually wear the backpack because the straps are too short, but instead carries it.  But he was wearing it Monday because he'd helped carry buckets of washed pottery to the museum.  He'd been using the iPod to record lectures and sounds, and of course it had other personal stuff on it too.  The theft probably occurred in the Old City soon after we left the Armenian Museum.  How disappointing!

Tuesday after the dig day, we walked along the southern end of the Old City.  We all met up at the Dung Gate.  Note the young soldier casually sitting there with his M16 gun.  There are guys and gals like this all over the place, ready to do their duty if necessary.

The Dung Gate got its name because in ancient times, the sewage and garbage (including refuse from the temple) dump was taken out of the city through that gate and dumped into the Hinnom Valley below to be burned.  More about the Hinnom Valley later!

We went to the Givati Parking Lot dig on the north end of the City of David.  This former parking lot now looks like this:

This excavation is publicly funded and directly managed by the Israel Antiquities Authority.  The IAA oversees all excavations in Israel and all artifacts that are found belong to them.

This little youtube video does a great job of telling the Givati Parking Lot story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW7zygjk0f0
They might have enough young non-decrepit people to toss buckets, but WE have a zip line!

We took a taxi back to our hotel -- too tired (and too much knee discomfort) to drag ourselves back up that hill.  We always enjoy catching a glimpse of the beautiful BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies.  It's just visible from the taxi, near the horizon.

Now that's a better view!