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Area A Iron Age Gateway Area, Area A More than 125 square meters of horizontal exposure have been opened to a maximum depth of four meters in Area A, figure 4. The sequence is very complicated. Several phases of an Iron Age II gateway, and a stairway leading to that gateway, have been excavated. Fragments of Persian Period rebuilding of the gateway have been found. These remains were built over by various Hellenistic, Roman and Ayyubid walls, a Roman/Hellenistic tower and an Ayyubid tower. The Iron Age builders removed most of the evidence of the second millennium BC and cut down into an important sequence of three phases of Early Bronze Age IV architectural remains. Excavations in 1983-84 exposed a portion of an Iron Age gateway on the southern slope of the high southern tell. The greatest part of the excavation effort in 1993 through 1999 continued to focus on this area as well, figure 5. The basic plan of the central portion of the last phase of the Iron Age II gateway is simple. It consists of a single gate chamber and an open entrance room or porch. The gateway was built on a slope so that in its final Iron II phase, a stairway of five steps was needed for the rise of about 1.00 m from the gateway chamber to the stone paved street inside the gateway. The street running north from the gateway is still partially covered by the Islamic tower. It measured 3.20 m wide at the gateway and was constructed with a single layer of stones. Only patches of fallen stones, and destruction debris in the way of ash, broken sun-dried brick, plaster fragments, were found throughout the area at roughly contemporary levels with the Iron Age street surface. Beneath this debris at least seven compact gravel surfaces were found in 10-15 cm layers and alternated with ash and destruction debris. The gravel extended from A26-29 in the north and A6 and A21 in the south. It is difficult to interpret anything other than a courtyard expanse that was reused for a considerable period of time in the Iron Age. Several phases of the Iron Age II gateway construction probably indicate a fairly long period of continuous use for the gateway within the ninth and the eighth centuries BC. Below the gateway, 5.00 m to the south, a stairway approaches the gateway at an angle, figure 6. Ten steps were cleared to a maximum width of 3.60 m. but our attempt to connect the gateway and the stairway was unsuccessful. Iron Age II and Later Materials Excavated in 2001 At the beginning of the season we had intended to concentrate on Iron II materials only in square A42. We intended to dismantle and remove the Roman tower in order to create a broader exposure of the Early Bronze Age IV remains in squares A29, 6, 7, 21, 22 and 24. Dr. Lee Maxwell removed several layers of stones on the north side tower at the beginning of the season, figure 7, and confirmed the Roman date of these upper layers of stones. The Roman phase proved to be a rebuilding of an earlier Hellenistic tower, which was probably the original phase of this structure. We temporarily abandoned our plan to dismantle the tower when it became evident that the Hellenistic tower apparently had at its core a double line of large stones that may be the remains of a portion of a substantial Iron II wall foundation. Two large stones with sides finished to smoothed surfaces rested on these rougher stones. These large stones may have been left close to their original location in an earlier structure when the tower was built, figure 8. Many of the stones from the tower have faces that have been worked smooth and may originally have been used as orthostats or bases of statues. So far no traces of inscriptions have been found or any indication of sculpture. We opened two new squares to the east of the tower, squares A23 and A30, so that we will be able see if a wall originally run to the east from the possible foundations encountered at the base of the tower. If the remains are better preserved in this location we should be able to understand the nature of the structure to which they belonged. Dr. Maxwell has removed the surface materials in both squares A23 and A30, and exposed many lines of walls, figure 9. One major wall continued the Islamic wall that extended to the east from the Ayyubid tower in the western portion of Area A. At the end of the season we confined our excavations to the western portion of the two squares in order to follow the mud-brick remains that are now evident in both exposures and in the east sections of A24 and A29. We may be coming close to the Iron Age levels in the southwest of square A23, but the mud-brick remains and the wall foundations that have been encountered so far in the rest of A23 and in A30 are associated with Hellenistic pottery. We will have to carry the excavations down to Iron II levels next year and will have to see how much of the area around the tower can be carried down to Early Bronze IV levels. Mr. Shaheen continued the excavation in A42 on the west side of the Iron Age II gateway area. The work again continued in two sections. The higher, western side continues to provide many discarded animal bones, figure 10. Only rough earth floor levels and occasional patches of white clay floors were encountered. By the end of the season we reached layers that contained Persian period pottery. In the lower portion of the square, on the east side, we have continued to work through various levels of fallen stones. As in other locations in the Iron IIA gateway area, we have evidence of Persian period rebuilding. In this case, the gateway wall has been thickened on the north side. We are into Iron Age II levels beneath this Persian period rebuilding. We have encountered many stones fallen from the gateway wall or nearby structure. As they were cleared, they seem to indicate wall lines but as excavation continued seem rather to be part of a massive destruction level. In the last few days we reached a different soil layer with a large amount of ash and carbonized material as well as the remains of many fallen mud-brick. This may be part of the same destruction with the stones higher collapsing down as the surrounding walls decomposed and fell on top of the collapsed materials from the initial destruction, figure 11. We have not yet reached the floor level associated with this destruction and will have to clarify this next year. It is possible that several destruction episodes are represented. This destruction debris is clearly lower than the street. More work needs to be done to clarify this and bring the western portion of the square down to this level. Northeast of the gateway we removed the wall that stood mostly in the section between squares A22 and A21. We had dated this wall to the Hellenistic period but found that that phase had been reused and that the wall was originally constructed in the Persian period. When we excavated beneath that wall we exposed the eastern face of the earlier phase of the Iron II gateway wall that had been obscured earlier and exposed small floor patches with additional Early Bronze IV wall segments, figure 12. |
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