2016 season
Ein Gedi Oasis – January 2016 season
Preliminary report
Dr. Gideon Hadas and Dr. Orit Peleg-Barkat
Directors of Ein Gedi Oasis Excavations
The delegation of the Ein Gedi Oasis Excavations concluded an additional season in January 2016. The excavation was under the auspices of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and was enabled by contributions of individuals, funds, the Dead-Sea & Arava Science Center and the National Parks Authority. Volunteers from abroad and Israel took part in the excavations; most of them devoted veterans of the former seasons, and also volunteers from the National Parks Authority, Mechinot Melah Ha-Aretz and the Ein Gedi Field School. The dig was directed by the authors, registration and camp by R. Merhav, surveying and drafting by D. Porotzki, pottery by A. de-Vincenz and Drone photographing by David Behr.
During this season our objective was to combine the two parts of the Byzantine village that were excavated northwards of the ancient village's synagogue, in order to make them one heritage site: one part that we excavated last season (January 2015), with the other part that was excavated by Y. Hirschfeld from 1996 to 2002. During Hirschfeld's last season, parts of rooms attached to the southern face of the "The Piazza House" and part of the "Truncates Street" (which we renamed "The Drainage Alley") were revealed (See Hirschfeld 2007, final report).
The excavated area was disturbed during the 20th century, by land reclamation in the 1950's in all the oasis, and as a result almost nothing was left from the Mameluke Period dwellings that were in the village. During the 1960's, a trench of c. 1 m deep for cathodic protection of the irrigation water pipe was excavated, which cut through the street's north wall and ruined a few of the rooms' entrances.
We revealed the rooms that Hirschfeld's excavation did not complete, and he called them:"Architectural spaces whose entrances face to the street..[without] courtyards or stairways ascending to an upper floor…this indicates that the spaces served as shops" (Hirschfeld 2007, 82). Also we cleared the baulks from the rooms and found that the rooms open to the street from the north, i.e. these are shops attached to the back of the "Piazza House". Below is their description, from east to west:
1. An oblong room (3.5x5 m) with an entrance to the street in its southern wall was excavated by Hirschfeld, and we just cleaned some debris that had fallen into it.
2. A trapezoid room (3X5 m) that most of it was excavated by Hirschfeld, who found a wall of the 3-4 C. CE under the Byzantine floor. We cleared the baulk and exposed the northern wall of the street, where the entrance to the room was located, with a step made of flat stones and hard plaster on the room's floor.
3. "The sharpening blade", a trapezoid room (2.5X3.5 m) where after clearing a hard sterile layer of clay, and a Mameluke floor, a Byzantine floor was revealed, where many pieces of pottery and a sharpening blade were found. We also exposed the western wall but the southern one was ruined by the cathodic pipe trench.
4. A small trapezoid room (1.5X4 m), where we also cleared the baulk which included the same Mameluke floor and a Byzantine floor below. The southern part of this room was destroyed by the cathodic pipe trench too, and therefore we are unable to know the relation of this room with the other rooms.
5. A trapezoid room (3.5X5 m) where we cleared the baulk and found the room's Byzantine floor with the entrance step on it in front of the entrance. Under this floor Hirschfeld found remains of Roman walls. We also excavated two test squares under the floor where some pottery shards and white plaster were found.
6. "The Pruning Hook room" is also a trapezoid room with an opening to a northern room which was excavated by Hirshfeld, except for its western side. We only cleared the baulk that passed through and the western section, where we found an iron medium size pruning hook.
Most of the northern face of the double wall and the single wall of the street was revealed too. It was also clear that east of the "Halfi Son House", another house exists, of which we excavated one room that was filled by debris of stones and sun dried mud bricks. There we found a basalt grindstone, close to the floor which is more than 1.5 m deeper than the level of the street's floor.
The street is now exposed for c. 20 m length, while just 5 m of it was excavated by Hirschfeld. It is also clear now that the western side of the street is 2.6 m wide, while the eastern side is 3.5 m wide. The street floor is made of a few layers of silt, mud and even fire ashes, oven ashes, few shards and bones too. Mameluke ovens were built all along the eastern side of the street and close to the surface, which proved the place was not used as a street then. Their remains and ashes were spread all around, as well as many field stones – as a result of the land reclamations.
It is also clear that this street floor followed the topographical situation of the "Settlements Spur", where the village was built and the street its watershed, therefore the attached buildings floors' levels are lower than the street floor level.
During the excavations some pottery and glass shards and coins were collected as well as bones and shells, and carbonized pieces of wood. All were delivered to experts for checking, identification and reporting.
To sum up, again we found that there were three periods of occupation, Mameluke, Byzantine and Roman. As mentioned above, no buildings of the Mameluke period survived, while all the exposed buildings are of the Byzantine period, when the whole village was ruined by a huge fire. From the Roman Period only pottery and white plaster shards were found, as we found in the former seasons.
It is now one combined site of a "A large village of Jews" of the 6th century, and soon after the National Parks Authority will accomplish its development, all the excavated area of the village will be accessible for the public.
During the last days of the season, the metal water pipe that split Hirschfeld's excavated site was taken away, which will enable us to achieve the excavation there.