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| Me, left, with Eli Shukron at the base of the Western Wall in Jerusalem. |
By Gary D. Myers
Tonight’s blog will be brief because we had a very busy day. We worked a short day today and then traveled to Jerusalem to tour the City of David site excavated by Eli Shukron over a 20 year period. Each one by itself, no problem. But it added up to make for a long day. Our guide was none other than the excavator himself -- Eli Shukron!
Shukron knows his archaeology and he knows and values the Bible. He does a great job connecting archaeological finds with the the places, people and events of the Bible. Many modern archaeologists do not consider the Bible as a worthy source of information. For instance, many Israeli archaeologists do know believe David existed and they question the historicity of the United and Divided Kingdoms. For us, the truth of the Bible is undeniable and the Word of God is the reason we have come to this country to learn about the context in which the Bible was written. Even though we were exhausted from our busy excavation and touring schedule, the tour was a real treat.
Wrapping up
The dig is quickly coming to a close. In fact tomorrow is our last day to dig. We may have some sifting and pottery washing and sorting to do Thursday, but most of that day will be spent cleaning up and securing the site.
We hit a spot in the floor today which does not seem to slope. Is this the point where the floor stops its gradual slope? Or is it another step? Hopefully we can determine that tomorrow. The photograph above shows the “drill” holes/cupping marks that we discovered earlier this dig. Last year similar marks were found just below the bottom step.
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| A portion of a flint sickle. |
One Treat for You
Some of the more exciting finds (at least exciting for archaeological value) cannot be published on this blog site. These will be published in the final report when the dig concludes. However, there are some very neat things that do not have such restrictions. Above is a photo of one of these items. It is a portion of a flint sickle from harvesting grain. This piece of flint, along with several more, would have been attached to a curved piece of wood. I have read about these, seen drawings of these, and many of the flint pieces we have found could be part of a sickle, but I had not seen the pointed first piece of a sickle. It was a trill for me. This web page has a drawing of flint sickle from Neolithic England http://scm.pastfinders.org/scm_27_pull.htm The Canaanites used a similar concept.
Some of the more exciting finds (at least exciting for archaeological value) cannot be published on this blog site. These will be published in the final report when the dig concludes. However, there are some very neat things that do not have such restrictions. Above is a photo of one of these items. It is a portion of a flint sickle from harvesting grain. This piece of flint, along with several more, would have been attached to a curved piece of wood. I have read about these, seen drawings of these, and many of the flint pieces we have found could be part of a sickle, but I had not seen the pointed first piece of a sickle. It was a trill for me. This web page has a drawing of flint sickle from Neolithic England http://scm.pastfinders.org/scm_27_pull.htm The Canaanites used a similar concept.
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