Yesterday (July 23, 2019), Jeff and I took a field trip to a few sites in northwestern Israel. We visited several sites, all of which were very interesting. It was nice to have a chance to see other teams in action, and view it as a visitor – and not an excavator
We visited the following sites:
- The IAA excavation at Ein Asawir at the entrance to Wadi Ara, directed by Itzik Paz and colleagues. This is an enormous excavation of a mega site (some 700 dumans in size) which is for the most part a fascinating EB IB settlement, with truly spectacular results – much of it quite “game changing”. As the results are so interesting, I’ll let the excavators and the IAA announce the finds when they deem appropriate.
- The excavations, directed by David Schloen (Chicago) and Gunnar Lehmann (BGU) at Tel Keisan in the western Galilee. They have returned to the site following a long hiatus after the French excavations, and have some very interesting Iron Age finds.
- The excavations at Tel Shimron in the northern Jezreel Valley, co-directed by Daniel Master (Wheaton) and Mario Martin (TAU). At this very large tell site, they are exposing really interesting finds from many periods, from the MB through modern periods, using many innovative field methods.
Here are some pictures from the trip (courtesy of Jeff and myself):
The Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project Official (and Unofficial) Weblog 