Since we finished excavating the Decumanus, I spent the last two days of the dig helping on two different sites that needed a lot of help. Both were fun, but I must say that I enjoyed the street the most. :)

Our site looks so much different than it did two days ago!

Today we moved pretty quickly and were able to make a lot of progress. It was very hot today, and I think it is supposed to be really hot all week (when is it not though?). The gate is actually closer than I thought it was, so if we work very hard during the next few days we might reach our goal! :)

The past two days have been full of new discoveries. While the rest of my team has continued to move toward the gate of the city while uncovering the street, I have been clearing out our water hole. The opening of the hole is about two feet by two feet. I spent a couple hours yesterday and most of today digging straight down to the bottom. It did not take me long to find that the hole leads to the main water channel of the city.

The past two days have been very exciting. Yesterday we began to uncover the original Roman wall that runs along both sides of the street. Up to this point the majority of the wall has been from a later period. We can tell it is the Roman wall because the pavement touches it on either side of the street. It is also much more neat and aesthetically pleasing. We can make more progress in a shorter period of time now that we have clearly cut walls on the sides of the street. We have moved a huge amount of dirt in the past two days!

Today we had the nicest weather of any day up to this point. There were clouds in the morning that hid the sun, and the temperature was quite pleasant. Tomorrow is supposed to be "back to normal," though, so no worries. :) We made a lot of progress today, and the street is looking great. Our group supervisor says we will reach the gate by the end of this week. Of course, that is what he said last week, but I think he might be right this time. :)

We are continuing to uncover the Decumanus Maximus. I think we are supposed to be at the gate by now, but finding the sidewalk distracted us, and we are uncovering a wider area now. We found some very nice Hellenistic stones that have been reused as pavement on the sidewalk. We also found a broken glass jar and some fragments of colored mosaic. I spend most of the time sweeping the street and shoveling dirt in front of the tractor. My muscles are becoming more accustomed to hard labor, so the work is getting easier. :)

We found the Roman sidewalk yesterday! The street was much wider in the Byzantine Period, but it was narrowed in the Umayyad Period, which was right after the Byzantine Period. The walls on either side of the street are later than the Romans and made from recycled stones, such as stones from arches, etc. The sidewalk shows that the street itself was at least a meter wider and would have appeared much wider with both sidewalks exposed on either side. I spent the majority of yesterday and today brushing off the sidewalk.

Today was great. It was not as hot, and there was actually a breeze now and then. I think we are all getting more used to the work now and are not as sore as we were last week. :) It is also very fun to see how much we are accomplishing. 

We made a lot of progress today. We have a lot more help this week, which makes the work faster and easier. There are more volunteers and some youth involved in an archaeology camp are helping us as well. Two fifteen year old girls joined our group on the main street. They both are very nice and speak excellent English.

Today was the last day of digging for the week, since the work week in Israel is Sunday through Thursday.  We have made a lot of progress on the site. More volunteers are coming next week, so we are hoping to open even more areas for excavation. It will be exciting to see what happens!