June 10: Ditto – Update 11

By Gary D. Myers

Ditto yesterday’s post.

That is about all that would be needed to describe the work today. It was just about the same as yesterday. Work continued in all the same areas today – in the probes at the bottom, at the sifting table, at the pottery washing station and in the conservation areas. We did add one new wrinkle today. We started marking all the pottery found underneath MacAlister’s “causeway.” This pottery, sealed off from all the years of backfill after MacAlister, will be analyzed and used to date the water system.

Several of the probes at the bottom of the water system continue to render amazing amounts of pottery. The dig leaders are thrilled with the volume of pottery and other items coming out of the pool area under the causeway. In his writings, MacAlister noted that the pool area was very deep. He tried to measure the depth with a six-foot-long crowbar, but found that the pool was deeper than six feet. We are finding that he was correct about the depth of the pool at the bottom of the tunnel. It is very deep. Our crews have yet to find the bottom in two of the probes.

So tomorrow will probably be a lot like today and the day before. Digging, shifting, washing, sorting and marking. But this is real progress. All the previous dig seasons at the Gezer water system were leading to this moment. Hopefully, as the pottery is analyzed, conclusions can be reached about who built this impressive water system and when they built it. For now, we continue on, probing the depths of the Gezer water system.