We had a great today on the tell! First of all – no air raid sirens! And also – some great archaeology!
Area A: The are working in Iron I, LB and a bit EB, mainly doing various stratigraphic checks to make sure we understand various previously excavated contexts.
Area D: Some really cool stuff! We have what appears to be a clear metallurgical context, most probably dating to the post-9th cent. BCE “squatter’s phase”. This includes a large amount of metal slag, a fragment of a tuyerre, and other interesting remains. As we already have a 10th BCE metallurgical areas in Area A from several years back, this should give a very nice long range perspective on the metallurgy at Gath in the Iron Age. Most importantly, Prof. Amotz Agnon (yes, the grandson of…) came with colleagues to Area D today, to work on taking various samples for paleomagnetic analyses – both from the metallurgical area as well as from various installations. We also had some other nice finds in D, from the 10th and 9th cent.
Area E: Work continued in the EB levels, with today’s highlight being the possible discovery of another donkey burial – in addition to the one found and published a few years ago.
Area F: As usual working various periods, including Iron IIB, Iron IIA, Iron I, LB and EB. The very impressive architecture under the EB fortification wall is becoming more and more impressive – and we clearly have a lot more to understand about it!
Area P: Also in P we have more evidence of the pre-EB fortification phase. In the LB levels near the EB wall several nice beads were found.
Amir Golani, Ianir Milevski and Alon De Groot of the IAA visited today, and we had very interesting and important discussions at the different parts of the excavations.
All told – great day – here are some pictures:
The Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project Official (and Unofficial) Weblog 