Romans? OK — but no porcupines

Have you ever looked hard for one thing only to find something else?

That’s what happened to Susan Cohen — and she says it happens to other archaeologists as well.

Susan wants to study the life of ordinary people living in a village in 1500 BCE* — farmers and shepherds and their families.

That time is called the Bronze Age because bronze — a mix of the elements copper and tin — was the most important way to make tools and weapons.

Another archaeologist suggested that, to find her Bronze Age villagers, she dig Tel Zahara (tell zah HA rah) in Israel.

A tel or tell is a human hill. When people build a town, sooner or later buildings fall down. People then put up other buildings on top of them. Over the centuries this pile of fallen buildings becomes a hill — a tell.

To archaeologists, a tell means: Dig here.


STARTING PARTWAY UP

Susan didn’t start at the top of Tel Zahara. The highest parts of tells usually have the houses of the rich. She wanted ordinary people.

On the other hand, digging at the bottom of the tell, her workers found artifacts washed down from higher up.

Archaeologists want to find artifacts exactly where people left them. That gives more information about how the people lived.

So Susan and her team began to dig midway up the tell.

And did they find villagers’ houses?

Er, no. They found a building with a Roman design. The Romans controlled the Holy Land starting in the mid-first century BCE.

In fact, Scott Hyslop (HIGH slip) saw the Roman building’s stone doorjamb poking through the surface the very first day. Scott is one of Susan’s students at Montana State University.

Scott and the others dug around the big doorpost stone and found a wall. The big rock now even has a name — Gromit, after the animated Wallace and Gromit team.


WRECKING CREW

What’s so bad about finding a Roman building when you’re looking for village life from 1,500 years earlier? “Whether we wanted it or not,” Susan sighs, “it has to be dug properly.”

She hasn’t given up on 1500 BCE. It’s down there somewhere.

In early July, Susan closed the dig for this season. When she returns in a year or two, her diggers will be a wrecking crew. That old Roman building may be doomed.

Of course she’ll take a lot of pictures and study the Roman building. But the Bronze Age village she hopes to find would be under it. “When we get back out here,” says Susan, “the first thing we do is remove this building.”

So if she is patient, Susan may find her ordinary villagers after all.

Oh, by the way, there is another reason not to dig at the top of the tell where the village’s rich once lived. Something else is living there now — porcupines!

What would it be like to dig your way into a porcupine burrow? Susan doesn’t know. And she doesn’t want to find out. — Marc Hequet

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* BCE means “before common era.” It’s the same as B.C., which means “before Christ.”

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Marc Hequet writes about Concordia University’s excavation at Hippos and other digs as well. Students, teachers and families are welcome to make use of the material as part of a curriculum. Contact Marc with questions via mhequet@sprintmail.com

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WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

Tells are the human-made hills that grow as people build houses and other buildings atop other structures that fall down.

Artifacts (AR tih facts) are tools, jewelry, weapons and other items that people use.

Doorjamb. A stone carved with an L-shaped ledge so that a door fits snugly against it.

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CAN YOU DIG IT?

Why would the rich live in the highest part of a village?

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MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE

Here’s what was happening elsewhere when villagers were farming and keeping sheep at Tel Zahara in 1500 BCE:

Cats were sacred in Egypt. Egyptians worshiped a love goddess with the head of a cat and the body of a woman. Archaeologists found a cat cemetery in Egypt with more than 300,000 cat mummies.

Genesis, the first book of the Bible, may be based in part on stories that people told one another as early as 1500-2000 BCE.

Stonehenge was completed. The monument in England was built between 2800-1500 BCE.

Zapotec Indians (ZAH puh tehk) lived in an empire in what now is southern Mexico from about 1500 BCE-750 CE. You may remember that the great earthquake that finally destroyed Hippos happened in 748 CE — just as the Zapotec empire was coming to an end.

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Information in “What Does That Mean” and “Meanwhile, Elsewhere” is from World Book Encyclopedia.

Raising a sarcophagus

A tractor lifted a sarcophagus out of its tomb July 4. And we continued to dig deeper in Square C4 to find out what that passageway is all about.

Diggers in other squares are working hard on important jobs as well, but the most spectacular event of the day was raising a sarcophagus out of its tomb for the first time in 1,500 years.

A tractor used its backhoe to lift the 2,600-kilogram* stone sarcophagus from its chamber under the altar of the church.

First the driver backed his tractor to the very edge of the church wall above the altar. Then he helped dig leader Mark Schuler hook two heavy-duty yellow straps under the sarcophagus as it lay in the tomb.

The driver opened his window and gave directions in Hebrew to Arthur Segal, the dig director. Arthur translated the directions to English, calling out to English-speaking dig workers standing in the altar area ready to help.

The backhoe easily lifted the huge stone from the tomb. The men in the altar area gently pushed the hovering sarcophagus to a place on the altar floor near the tomb.

When it was safely at rest, people who had come from all over the Hippos dig to watch clapped.


STACKING COFFINS

Now Glenn Borchers can go to work on what was under the heavy sarcophagus — human bones.

We think that someone was buried in a wooden coffin in the chamber under the altar. Later, another body was placed in the heavy stone sarcophagus and it was lowered into the tomb atop the wooden coffin.

Still later, two other dead bodies were placed in the stone sarcophagus. We think it may be three people from the same family, but we just don’t know.

Glenn, a retired soil scientist from Moorhead, Minn., spent much of the dig season in 2004 and 2005 carefully removing bones from the heavy stone sarcophagus removed July 4.

Glenn noticed that the sarcophagus didn’t rest flat on the floor of the tomb. It was up off the floor, tipping a little on some stones.

Reaching underneath, he found nails. We think those nails are from a wooden coffin that decayed long ago.

Now that the big rock sarcophagus is out, Glenn can focus on the burial beneath.

We could see “at least 10” bone fragments from the edge of the tomb after the tractor lifted out the sarcophagus, says dig leader Mark Schuler. “And then we’ve got all this dirt to go through.”

Glenn will climb down a ladder into the tomb each day. He will carefully take out all the bones he can find so a bone expert can study them. We hope we get to know whoever is buried there.


BACK AT THE PASSAGE

Meanwhile, back at the mysterious passageway outside the church, we dug deeper and found a rough wall on one side of the walkway.


The wall curves a little, as you can see in this picture of Irene Abrams digging out the walkway.

The passageway and curvy wall may come from a time later than the nearby church. A farm or shepherd family may have built the curvy wall after the big earthquake in 748 CE.

We will know the curvy wall is later than the church if we reach its bottom and find dirt or more church stuff below it.

But we haven’t reached the bottom of the curvy wall yet. “The deeper we go,” says dig leader Mark Schuler, “the older it gets.”

And what about that door we thought we had from the passageway to the South Vaulted Chamber?

Well, there appears to be an opening to the chamber — but it could be just a window, or a place in the wall where a lot of rocks fell away to create a gap.

“We have pretty well put to bed any hopes that there was a doorway from that passageway into the South Vaulted Chamber,” says Mark. “Of course, watch me eat my words on that with something you guys find tomorrow.” — Marc Hequet

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* To change from centimeters to inches and to make other metric conversions, you can use this site from the state of Washington: www.wsdot.wa.gov/Metrics/factors.htm

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Marc Hequet writes about Concordia University’s excavation at Hippos and other digs as well. Students, teachers and families are welcome to make use of the material as part of a curriculum. Contact Marc with questions via mhequet@sprintmail.com

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WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

Here’s a list of words from this story:

Sarcophagus (sar KOFF ah gus). A rock box for a dead body.

Altar (ALL ter). The front part of a church.

Backhoe. A powerful tractor tool that can both dig and lift.

Translating means hearing a person say somethign in one language and then speaking the same thing in another language.

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CAN YOU DIG IT?

Take this quiz to find out what you learned:

Let’s say you have 100 students in your school. The average weight of the 100 students is 30 kilograms. All together, do you and your classmates weigh more than the stone sarcophagus?

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MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE

Here’s what was happening elsewhere when people buried three individuals in the stone sarcophagus under the altar of our church:

Karate. During the 500s CE**, a group called the Hwarang practiced karate in the country of Silla, later called Korea. These Hwarang were youths picked to receive training as military leaders.

Silk came only from China until the 500s CE, when people in the West learned how to make silk cloth.

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** CE means “common era.” It’s the same as A.D., which means “anno Domini,” Latin for “in the year of our Lord.”

Information in “What Does That Mean” and “Meanwhile, Elsewhere” is from World Book Encyclopedia.

Secret passageway?

Today we found a mysterious passage leading from the South Vaulted Chamber. Or past it. We just don’t know.

Mark Schuler, our dig leader, is a veteran excavator. As he stood over our square thinking about the big jumble of rocks we had dug up, he had a hunch.

Mark thought he saw a kind of narrow alley — a walkway passing the door leading to the South Vaulted Chamber.

Mark asked us to remove the dirt from that part of our square.

Sure enough, about half a meter* down it seemed we had a walkway. It turns a corner to go away from the South Vaulted Chamber.

Only 80 centimeters wide, the narrow walkway makes it hard for two people to pass each other. It leads around the corner of a tumble-down room where lots of big rocks have fallen.

We don’t know what the tumble-down room is for. And we don’t know where the passage leads.


In this picture, diggers Irene Abrams (left) and Darryl Schmidt clear dirt from the walkway.


TAKING THE LONG WAY

What’s going on? Mark is puzzled. He thinks our walkway is an outdoor passage. But why would people take this long way into the South Vaulted Chamber:

Enter from the main street of the city of Hippos.

Go past the South Vaulted Chamber.

Turn left, then right, then right again.

Walk into the church to visit the sarcophagus of the tiny old woman.

And then go into the South Vaulted Chamber for healing.

If our church is a healing center, that’s a lot of twists and turns for sick people.

Are we wrong about the healing? Is our walkway actually a secret passageway for monks or nuns who had promised to stay away from other people and everyday life?

And why is the passageway so narrow? Mark thinks he has an answer for that mystery: “The narrowness doesn’t bother me,” he says. “We have to remember that people were smaller in antiquity.”

Where does the secret passageway lead? We don’t know. We’ll keep digging. — Marc Hequet

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* To change from centimeters to inches and to make other metric conversions, you can use this site from the state of Washington: www.wsdot.wa.gov/Metrics/factors.htm

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Marc Hequet writes about Concordia University’s excavation at Hippos and other digs as well. Students, teachers and families are welcome to make use of the material as part of a curriculum. Contact Marc with questions via mhequet@sprintmail.com


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WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

Here’s a list of words from this story:

Square. Archaeologists dig up old things one square at a time. A square may be about four or five meters on a side. Diggers start at the top and dig down a little at a time.

Sarcophagus (sar KOFF ah gus). A rock box for a dead body.

Monks and nuns are people who make a promise to God to live apart from ordinary people — and maybe stay away from ordinary people entirely.

Antiquity (an TICK witty) means times long ago.

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CAN YOU DIG IT?

Take this quiz to find out what you learned:

In a hallway 80 centimeters wide, could you and a friend stand side by side? Could you pass each other?

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MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE

Here’s what was happening elsewhere as people were scurrying along our mysterious passage:

King Arthur was a minor ruler in England. Arthur became famous as the main character in stories about his knights of the Round Table.

Harsha (HUHR shuh), an emperor who lived from about 590-647 CE**, ruled most of northern India. He inherited a small kingdom in the Ganges River Valley at age 16 and conquered neighboring kingdoms.

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** CE means “common era.” It’s the same as A.D., which means “anno Domini,” Latin for “in the year of our Lord.”

Information in “What Does That Mean” and “Meanwhile, Elsewhere” is from World Book Encyclopedia.

The buried doorwayto last summer

Kristina Neumann thinks the best find on the first day of the dig Sunday was — a doorjamb.

It may lead her to new clues about the South Vaulted Chamber.

A doorjamb is pretty boring. But it’s a good way to start the season at Hippos.

We found the big stone with its L-shaped edge as we were scraping away soil and rocks in the top 20 centimeters* of the square next to the South Vaulted Chamber.

A doorjamb is part of a doorway. A door closes tightly against it.

Our doorjamb may be from the door between the South Vaulted Chamber we found last year and the room that we’re digging this summer. In this picture, the South Vaulted Chamber is in the background. The room next to it is still full of dirt.




WISHING WELL?

The South Vaulted Chamber is a mystery. Kristina, a history major at Concordia University in Mequon, Wis., will lead the excavation of its cistern this month.

In the cistern, she hopes for more clues. “It was used to collect the water next to the saint,” says Kristina. “Maybe it was almost something like a wishing well.”


HEALING ROOM?

We wonder if the South Vaulted Chamber was a healing room. Pilgrims may have drawn water from its cistern to take with them.

Another door from the chamber leads into a church — where the sarcophagus of a tiny old woman lies.

Christians thought that the bones of holy people helped the sick get well. Sick people could have entered the church, stopped to say a prayer by the sarcophagus, and then gone into the South Vaulted Chamber.

What would have happened there? Maybe people dropped coins into the cistern — almost like a wishing well.


MAGIC AMULET

Last year in the South Vaulted Chamber, near the cistern, digger Linda Miller found a magic gold amulet.

On it was written the word pepte (PEP teh). In Greek, the language of Hippos, that means digest. A sick person may have believed the amulet would cure a bad tummy ache.

The South Vaulted Chamber is a big room, 6.23 x 5.63 meters. It has benches along the wall wide enough for people to lie on.

Was it a kind of hospital? We don’t know. We may know more after Kristina and her team excavate the cistern.

But first we’ll let Kristina (in front in the first picture) make notes by the beach with Amanda Bundy of the University of Concordia in St. Paul, our dig photographer. — Marc Hequet

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* To change from centimeters to inches and to make other metric conversions, you can use this site from the state of Washington: www.wsdot.wa.gov/Metrics/factors.htm

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Marc Hequet writes about Concordia University’s excavation at Hippos and other digs as well. Students, teachers and families are welcome to make use of the material as part of a curriculum. Contact Marc with questions via mhequet@sprintmail.com


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WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

Here’s a list of words from this story:

The South Vaulted Chamber is on the south side of the church. The ceiling is long gone, but we found what’s left of the vault in 2005.

Cisterns (SIS turns) are places for storing water — very important at Hippos because of the long dry season.

Pilgrims (PILL grims) are people who travel to holy places.

Sarcophagus (sar KOFF ah gus). A rock box for a dead body.

Amulet (AM you let). A magic charm to protect whoever wears it against disease.

Digest (dih JEST). What your stomach does to what you eat.

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CAN YOU DIG IT?

Take this quiz to find out what you learned:

1. What is a doorjamb?

2. Why were cisterns important?

3. How big is the South Vaulted Chamber?

4. The ceiling of the South Vaulted Chamber is caved in. How do we know it had a vault?

5. Is the South Vaulted Chamber bigger than your bedroom?

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MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE

Here’s what was happening elsewhere as people were visiting the South Vaulted Chamber in about 600 CE*:

The oldest hospital still in existence is the Hotel Dieu in Paris, founded during the 600s CE**. Earlier, nuns and monks had started hospitals for sick travelers, the poor, the blind and the crippled.

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** CE means “common era.” It’s the same as A.D., which means “anno Domini,” Latin for “in the year of our Lord.”

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Information in “What Does That Mean” and “Meanwhile, Elsewhere” is from World Book Encyclopedia.