January 1929
19
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K i n g ' s
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their presence enabled Dr. Albright to spend much less time in actual direction of digging, for he was the only one of us who spoke more than a few words of Arabic. Tents were pitched on a threshing-floor, just south of the summit of the hill, and about thirty yards outside the ancient city wall. Eight or nine acres are enclosed by these walls, roughly circular, and in a commanding posi tion toward all sides. The northern exposure is over a precipitous slope, which becomes less abrupt as one follows around to the south. The walls average perhaps twenty feet in height, except on the steep side, where they are only ten or twelve feet. But the weathering of centuries has resulted in the concealing of most of the wall and its ramparts, only a few courses of stones at the top out lining its position, as seen from a distance. There were two gates to the ancient cities on this site; a narrow passage on the west, and the main gate, wide enough for chariots, on the east. Both of these were built as winding passages, for better defense. A stairway of a sort gave a northern approach over the wall. When a city was captured and destroyed, in olden days, it was rebuilt usually directly on the leveled-off ruins, new building material being brought in, and some of the larger ol$ stones used again. A wall which had escaped the devastation might be incorporated into the new house, and many times was used as a foundation for new walls. A glimpse of the landscape will dispel any doubt about the supply of building material. There is enough loose stone on the surface to build a Washington Monument in every square mile of Palestine! Trees were doubtless more abundant then. In fact, in the lowest, the earliest city of this tell, building must have been largely of wood, for there are no stone walls in the small area that has been excavated so far. The stratification consequent to this manner of rebuilding is the book in which the archeologist reads the history of the place. It it frequently possible to separate sharply the successive strata, because of the line of burned debris which will appear beneath the floors of the subsequent city. There is an especially thick layer of .burning at the time the Israelite invaders destroyed the city. Everything beneath this belongs to the Canaanite civilization; everything above is from the Israelite period. There is some mixture of poetry, from the digging of grain-pits, for example, but the general run of potsherds and other relics gives an unmistakable record of the time as well as the type of the civilization of each city. It is by the pottery that the experienced archeologist knows with what period he is dealing. Detailed and com parative studies of pottery from various excavations have resulted in a definite chronology, which is continually be ing made more exact, enabling the expert to tell from a handful of potsherds almost the very half-century in which he is working. Tell Beit Mirsim has been rich in pottery, and of exact stratification, so that it is probably the best site in palestine for this study. The yield of these eight weeks amounts to about 600 whole and reassembled pieces of pottery. On April 4 the actual digging began, with about seventy men using pick, hoe, and basket. Immediately the remains of an ancient Jewish civilization began to appear; the walls soon looked like a miniature Pompeii. Most of the pottery was broken into fragments, but a few perfect lamps and jars were found at once. All potsherds are collected by the workmen, to be examined by the staff for points of special interest. By keeping the fragments
from a given area together, many a hopeless puzzle re solves into a beautiful bowl or pitcher. It is infinitely more fascinating than cross-word puzzles. Level with the top of the city wall, from which the parapet has been thrown down, is stretched the flat surface of the mound punctuated by great heaps of stones, presumably the ruins of large buildings. Over the surface of the area a meager crop of wheat and lentils has to be destroyed, and the owners compensated. Cultivation is rather haphazard anywhere in this land of stones, and almost nil on this spot, where great stones project at close intervals, marking the ancient Jewish houses. It is common to see four or five weathered rocks in a straight line, possibly four feet apart; removal of from three to six feet of soil and debris will reveal the plan of the building. These projecting nubbins are great roughly squared stones, used evidently as pillars for the support of upper story and roof, all burned and destroyed. After three weeks, the excavated area of approx imately a half acre was restored to something of its appearance 2,515 years ago, when Nebuchadnezzar had his little picnic there. Along one edge of the uncovered city is a street wide enough for a chariot, starting from the main gate on the east; and tributary to this street are several alleys, by which all the houses of our sector com municated. One alley widens out into a nicely paved plaza, and in the midst of this a cistern was found, covered by a large square stone, with a hole large enough to lower vessels for drawing water. A small depression^nbft to the hole was evidently used as support for a water-jar with narrow base, while filling it from the cistern. Water supply was a vital problem in times of siege. We know of no well nearer than the “nether spring,” one mile south, from which we drew our own good drinking water, a well easily 4,000 years old. Rain-water, stored in cisterns, was probably the sole supply of the belea guered populace. But the cisterns were plentiful. This one and another in our sector would each accommodate possibly 75,000 gallons, on a guess. Outside the wall one stumbles frequently on a broken-in cistern, with its mouth inside the wall. Some of these are enormous, reminding one of the great subterranean reservoirs of old Constantinople. It is probable that the entire city is undermined by a system of passages and chambers. We followed this from two approaches, taking out quantities of debris from our eastern “grotto.” It is quite possible that the earliest inhabitants placed their dead here, although we found no bones; other mounds have a similar tomb. But in later centuries a more utilitarian purpose was served, from the evidence of grain-pits found, with a few potsherds. It was a pity to tear out the excellent walls and pave ments of the last Jewish city, but it was necessary to go deeper. The houses of the next two strata were rather fragmentary. Evidently there had been more thorough destruction of these cities, and since they had been flat tened by subsequent rebuilding, it was more difficult to make a connected survey and map. The small objects found, however, were numerous, and showed the similarity with contemporaneous cities elsewhere in Palestine. Two lower strata represent, respectively, the period of the Israelite Judges and the last Canaanite settlement. When we reached the fourth stratum, again there was a well-pre served city, of greater depth of debris than any except the first, and which bids fair to be the most productive and most interesting period of the mound. It was interesting to see that many of these walls were of brick. Whether such is true of the entire city remains to be seen. It is
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