Digging up the Holy Land

17 DIGGING UP THE HOLY LAND by Ken Woolverton ARPS

Of all archaeology, 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.

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.

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.

Jonathan Tubb (hands on hips), the leader of the expedition, briefs the Jordanian diggers

18

On the Bronze age burial site (about 2.700 B.C.) it was customary to break a pot over the buried head of the corpse

19

I was able to observe the team at work. The day began at 5.30

piling into the minibus for the 5 mile journey from the 'dig house', through the fertile agricultural lands of the Jordan Valley (waved on by friendly Jordanian soldiers at check points - for this is a very sensitive area), to the Tell. Here we were joined by the diggers; 70 local men who remove soil and, the more skilful, trowel and brush around revealed walls, bones and artefacts. It is still chilly at that time of the morning in April but by 1.00 p.m. it is too warm to continue. There is nothing quite like watching the gradual uncovering of a burial jar, with a human skeleton appearing for the first time for 5.000 years. Or seeing, still firmly embedded in clay, the rim and handle of a vessel not knowing whether it lies there complete or is simply a broken piece, because he

Kate Woolverton sorts and catalogues some of the pottery sherds. (Those in the picture represent about two days' excavation)

20

site disgorges many hundreds of broken pottery sherds. Back at the dighouse the rest of the team are busy. The conservationists are gently removing earth and scale from valuable finds such as ivory knives and jewellery. The archaeological botanists are examining earth samples under the microscope for socio-economic evidence.

The illustrators draw site discoveries from life. Other members of the team identify, mark and record bones and pottery. And Alan, the photographer, puts to use cameras and film provided by the partsponsors of the dig, Bronica and Agfa.

On the Bronze age burial site (about 2.700 B.C.) it was customary to break a pot over the buried head of the corpse