The 7th season of Excavations at the Ein Gedi village of the Second Temple Period

Preliminary report

Dr. Gideon Hadas

Director of Ein Gedi Oasis Excavations

Dead-Sea & Arava Science Center

The delegation of the Ein Gedi Oasis Excavations resumed its 7th season of excavations at the Ein Gedi village that lasted four weeks in January 2009. The excavation was under the auspices of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and was enabled by contributions of individuals, funds and the Dead-Sea & Arava Science Center. Volunteers from abroad and Israel took part in the excavation, most of them veterans of the former seasons. 

During the season, we continued revealing the houses of Ein Gedi village from the Second Temple period, aligned on both sides of the village lane. We accomplished the excavation of the buildings on the west side of the lane, The Southern House and cleared the Kallal Courtyard of the Key House. East of the lane we continued revealing the tops of the house's walls, and now the general plan of the village has become clearer. It seems that its dimensions were bigger than we previously thought.

While excavating the Kallal Courtyard, a few clay vessels were found:  cooking pots, jugs, a clay pipe and also a Roman iron key or "Arkuba" was found in a bad state of preservation. We also excavated the western room of the Earlier Building under the Southern House, and the "Second Beer Basement". In the lower part of the basement, shards were found dated probably to the end of the Hasmonaean period. According to the state of preservation of the walls the western room, it seems that most of the wall's building stones were robbed and used by the Southern House builders.

East of the lane, the slope of the ground where the village houses were built is steeper. For this reason, the building walls were damaged, from a south-west to north east direction, during the land reclamation in the 1950's. In this area we revealed the tops of walls in many rooms, but the entrances are not as yet clear.

The finds of this season included many pottery vessels, a soft lime stone cup and even one floor tile made of oil shale. We found many iron nails, a few bronze nails, bronze coins, a few small chunks of lead and very few pieces of glass. Animal bones, a few chunks of bitumen and charcoaled wood were also collected, most of them of palm trees.

                Now it remains for us to complete exposing the houses on the east side of the lane, in order to have better understanding of the village plan , houses adjoining both sides of the lane of the village of Ein Gedi during the end of the Second Temple Period.