Excavations Archives - Page 78 of 97

iPad May Revolutionize Archaeology

Archaeologists working at Pompeii are ecstatic about the value of iPads in the recording process, according to this article posted at apple.com.

For Dr. Steven Ellis, who directs the University of Cincinnati’s archaeological excavations at Pompeii, perhaps the most significant discovery at the site this year was iPad. Ellis credits the introduction of six iPad devices at Pompeii with helping his team solve one of the most difficult problems of archaeological fieldwork: how to efficiently and accurately record the complex information they encounter in the trenches. Most archaeological researchers today collect data from their sites as others have for the past 300 years. “It’s all pencil and paper,” says Ellis. “You have to draw things on paper, or in preprinted forms with boxes. That’s a problem because all these pages could be lost on an airplane, they could burn, they could get wet and damaged, or they could be written in unintelligible handwriting. And eventually they have to be digitized or entered into a computer anyway.” Although portable computers offer a paperless solution, field archaeologists rarely use them in the trenches because their size, input limitations, battery life, and sensitivity to dirt and heat make them impractical in the harsh conditions of a dig. […]

Photo from apple.com article

Ellis, who estimates that iPad has already saved him a year of data entry, plans to increase the number of iPad devices from one to two per trench. “The recovery of invaluable information from our Pompeian excavations is now incalculably faster, wonderfully easier, unimaginably more dynamic, precisely more accurate, and robustly secure,” he says. Beyond the scope of his project, Ellis sees iPad as revolutionizing the 300-year-old discipline of archaeological fieldwork. “A generation ago computers made it possible for scholars to move away from just looking at pretty pictures on walls and work with massive amounts of information and data. It was a huge leap forward. Using iPad to conduct our excavations is the next one. And I’m really proud to be a part of it.”

The article gives more details and includes a number of photos of the iPad in action.

Tagged Excavations, Italy, Technology

Herod’s Theater Box Discovered at Herodium

From the Jerusalem Post:

A royal box built at the upper level of King Herod’s private theater at Herodium has been fully unveiled in recent excavations at the archaeological site, providing a further indication of the luxurious lifestyle favored by the well-known Jewish monarch, the Hebrew University announced in a statement released Tuesday.
The theater, first revealed in 2008, is located halfway up the hill near Herod’s mausoleum, whose exposure in 2007 aroused worldwide attention. The highly decorated, fairly small theater was built in approximately 15 BCE, which was the year of the visit of Roman leader Marcus Agrippa to Judea, Emperor Augustus’s right-hand man, according to Prof. Nezter, who has been assisted in the excavations by Yakov Kalman, Roi Porath and Rachel Chachy.
The royal box (measuring eight by seven meters and about six meters high) is the central space among a group of rooms attached to the upper part of the theater’s structure. This impressive room likely hosted the king, his close friends and family members during performances in the theater and was fully open facing the stage.
Its back and side walls are adorned with an elaborate scheme of wall paintings and plaster moldings in a style that has not been seen thus far in Israel; yet, this style is known to have existed in Rome and Campania in Italy during those years. This work, therefore, was probably executed by Italian artists, perhaps sent by Marcus Agrippa, who a year before his visit to Judea met Herod on the famous Greek island of Lesbos, said Netzer.

The article continues here. A similar story is posted at China Daily. For previous stories on Herod’s tomb, see here. The Smithsonian has a gallery of a dozen photos of the Herodium, the last two of which (11, 12) show the most recent excavations.

HT: Joe Lauer

Herodium theater

Tagged Excavations, Herod's Tomb

Questions about a Hasty Excavation in Jerusalem

I am intrigued by a new report of an excavation of a Jerusalem burial cave for several reasons (HT: Roi Brit). First, the tomb is interesting in its own right, with six kokhim, a standing pit, a blocking stone, and seven complete ossuaries. The lid of one of these bone boxes was attached by a bronze nail and another had a two-line inscription which read in part, “Cursed is the one who casts me from my place.” The archaeologists date the cave to the 1st century AD.

But I’m less impressed by the obvious haste with which the tomb was excavated. The archaeologists make no attempt to mask the conditions under which they worked. They write:

On the night of January 18, 2009, a rock-hewn burial cave was hastily documented in the Qiryat Shemuel neighborhood of Jerusalem.

Night conditions are less than ideal for archaeology, even when the excavation is in a cave.

The hurried process and poor lighting conditions in the cave precluded a proper examination and description of the cave’s contents.

The operation was so hasty that they could not even get sufficient lighting in place for their examination.

Artifacts were not removed from the cave and once its documentation was done, it was sealed and covered with soil.

Sealing a cave after excavation is not unusual, particularly when it is not necessarily unique and lies in the way of a building project. But it is disturbing that artifacts were left in the cave when a proper examination was not done. The world has not yet been rid of grave robbers.

Due to the haste, only two complete ossuaries and several decorated fragments were documented (Figs. 4, 5)….Careless engravings or traces of faded paint were noted on other ossuaries; these may also be inscriptions that require further research for decipherment.

The obvious question here is who is running the show in Jerusalem. Do building contractors have more authority than government archaeologists? It seems to me that this report is a quiet protest against the way antiquities are being treated in Israel. The tomb and its artifacts are part of the nation’s heritage. Whatever construction project is involved is likely not part of that heritage. What is so important that the contractors cannot wait one day while the tomb is properly studied? Who makes the decision on these matters? Are they influenced by the deep pockets of the building contractors? Are Israeli government officials selling out the nation’s heritage to line their pockets?

Tagged Analysis, Excavations, Jerusalem

Classical City Uncovered on Egypt’s Coast

The AP reports on the excavation of Leukaspis (Antiphrae) on the northern coast of Egypt. From the AP:

Today, it’s a sprawl of luxury vacation homes where Egypt’s wealthy play on the white beaches of the Mediterranean coast. But 2,000 years ago, this was a thriving Greco-Roman port city, boasting villas of merchants grown rich on the wheat and olive trade.
The ancient city, known as Leukaspis or Antiphrae, was hidden for centuries after it was nearly wiped out by a fourth century tsunami that devastated the region.
More recently, it was nearly buried under the modern resort of Marina in a development craze that turned this coast into the summer playground for Egypt’s elite.
Nearly 25 years after its discovery, Egyptian authorities are preparing to open ancient Leukaspis’ tombs, villas and city streets to visitors — a rare example of a Classical era city in a country better known for its pyramids and Pharaonic temples.

The story continues here. Click on the slideshow link on the side to see seven photos.

HT: Joe Lauer

Tagged Egypt, Excavations

Temple Discovered in Ataroth, Jordan

It was just another roadside stop on my quest to find and photograph every biblical site known in the country of Jordan. While most tourists, even those biblically oriented, don’t visit much more than Petra, Jerash (Gerasa), and Mount Nebo, there are dozens of other sites in Jordan mentioned in the
Old Testament. I was at one of these when my traveling partner decided he had seen enough piles of rocks and was going to wait in the car.

This site, however, was more than a pile of rocks. Recent excavations had revealed some walls, floors, and a cave. As I made a circuit around the site, I had the distinct impression that I was looking at a temple. I cannot recall now all the features that led me to this conclusion, but by the time I returned to the car I was absolutely convinced that I had “discovered” a temple at biblical Ataroth (modern Attarus or Ataroz).

Some later research revealed that excavators from LaSierra University believed they were working on an Iron Age temple. The natural question for me was whether this was a Moabite temple or an Israelite temple. I was not privy to the details, and these could be ambiguous in any case (faithless Israelites do not look very different from their neighbors). Biblically we know that this area, the Medeba Plateau, shifted hands several times between the Israelites and their cousins. Perhaps you recall Jephthah’s declaration that this land belonged to Israel for 300 years (Judges 11:26). At the time he was contesting Ammonite control, but at other times it was the Moabites who were trying to expand into the land that Israel conquered under Moses (Numbers 21:21-35).

Yesterday news of the temple discovery was published by the Associated Press (HT: Joe Lauer). The story notes that about 300 vessels and deity figurines were uncovered, most in the last few months. It also attributes the temple to the Moabites. Such a designation does not surprise me for two reasons.

First, the Moabites probably controlled this area more than the Israelites did. Second, there are political reasons for not associating ancient Israelites with the country of Jordan. But if you’re thinking that the Israelites would never have a temple outside of Jerusalem, then you haven’t read your Bible very well. The Israelites had shrines all over the place. Even Solomon built a high place to the Moabite god for his Moabite wife (1 Kings 11:7).

The AP article has only two photos about the discovery, both showing artifacts. Below are two images of the temple itself, both taken six years ago. Apparently it was the recent discovery of the figurines that led to the press conference only now announcing the temple.

Iron Age temple at Ataroth

“Holy of holies” of Iron Age temple

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations, Jordan, Travels

Restoring Israel’s Antiquities

Haaretz has an interesting story this weekend on the work of a ceramics restoration specialist in the Israel Antiquities Authority. Her job is to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Many years before the corruption allegations, something entirely different was uncovered at the Holyland project site in Jerusalem: traces of several ancient communities, including shards of two clay vessels. The piles of potsherds were delivered to the table of Elisheva Kamaisky, a ceramics restoration specialist for the Israel Antiquities Authority, who reconstructed the jugs in a gentle work of piecing together a complex jigsaw puzzle.
“I love the earliest periods because they didn’t use tools then. No two vessels are the same. I’m full of awe in front of their technical abilities. In the Roman period mass production starts, and then if you’ve seen one vessel you’ve seen them all,” she says. “The beautiful thing about ceramics is that the same techniques are used today. True, we have electric furnaces and control the heat better, but the basics are the same in the most ancient jug and the ceramics NASA uses to coat its spaceships.”
Kamaisky is one of the Antiquities Authority’s six-member restoration team who reconstruct objects and implements of the material culture in the country since human habitation began. They receive potsherds, threadbare cloths, metallic weapons, golden coins, delicate glassware and more. Unlike their colleagues in the rest of the world, Israeli law bars them from working with human remains.
Archaeologist Zvika Greenhut says restoration work is important “because it’s the only way you can see the entire picture. For example, in one dig I worked on in Motza we found a room full of pitcher shards. But only when we started piecing them together did we understand that the room couldn’t possibly hold all these vessels. There were two possibilities: Either they were all stored one inside each other, or there were shelves that held them but didn’t survive into our time. It was clearly a storeroom and this means something about that culture.”

The full story is here.

HT: Joe Lauer

Restored Iron Age cooking pots, Eretz Israel Museum

Tagged Excavations, Technology