Day 5

Yesterday the dig director, Dan Schowalter, showed us some of the fanciest artifacts found in previous digs. Since the temple slowly went out of business, these are not as many as one might expect. But there is some glass, marble and sculpture. And a nice sphinx that has been sent off to the Israel Museum. He thinks this is an official starting a race by dropping a cloth.

We continued to strip away the surface layer today. Lots of pottery shards but still the same rich, black, and dry upper layer. Lots of large rocks. Stay tuned. The weather has been warm but not oppressive except in the late afternoon. We cleaned the pottery that we found yesterday (and that had been soaking for a day). The asst director, an art historian who tries to decypher the architecture details of the site (and who is moving to a new job at Queens College (CUNY)), is going to give a lecture tonight.