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The process of photographing French church architecture is an absorbing and fascinating one. I shall be content if I have succeeded in communicating to others something of the sense of wonder and peace inspired in me.
DIGGING UP THE HOLY LAND by Ken WoolvertonARPS
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Of all arcooeology, perhaps that which excites most interest and controversy is excavation in the Bible lands. When my wife was given , the opportunity this year to join a team from the British Museum which was excavating in the Jordan Valley I was able to join her for part of the time, in a country where we had once lived for two years.
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This was the sixth in a series of excavations at Tell es-Sa'idiyeh, a double mount linked by a saddle (unmistakeably man-made), which arises from the flat plain of the River Jordan. The site has been identified by archaeologists as the biblical city of Zarethan which is mentioned several times in the Old Testament, notably in the Book of Joshua where it is lined to the passage of the Israelites bearing the Ark of the Covenant. But this biblical context can easily overshadow the significance of other finds in the stratification of occupation over a period 3.000 B.C. to the spread of the Roman Empire.
Note: Readers may be interested to know that Richard has two large 20 x 24 inch prints of Poitiers and A/bi, made by the master printer Gene Nocon, on permanent display in London, together with others taken in Spain and Portugal. They are in the University of London Institute of Romance Studies, which occupies a part of Senate House in Malet Street, WC1. Permission to view them may sought from the lnstitute's Administrative Secretary on 071-636 3017.
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On the highest level, referred to as the "acropolis", were the remains of a palace of the Persian period consisting of seven rooms round a courtyard and dating from the 4th Century B.C. An earlier, American, excavation identified a staircase leading from the plain to an Iron Age city of between 1200 and 900 B.C. The British Museum teams, under the direction of Jonathan Tubb, have been concentrating on the Iron Age levels and the earlier Bronze Age period. They have discovered a hitherto unsuspected Egyptian influence east of the Jordan River in the 12th Century B.C. with burial customs and building techniques peculiar to Egypt at the time. They have also uncovered an Iron Age settlement of the 8th Century B.C. which was probably in the kingdom of Jeroboam II.
