Plans are beginning for the 2012 Season. We will be excavating Building Beta in the western zone, and we will be exposing another section of the House of Tyche. Explore the “Volunteer Info” menu above for full details. Click “Dig Registration” when you are ready to sign up. We hope to see you at Sussita. Click here to download a brochure and poster.
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Jackie Wiebold, volunteer from last summer, has been working on a 3D model of the Northeast Insula Project. Here is an early glimpse at what promises to be an interesting and helpful view of our work.
There are several parallels for the mosaic inscriptions from the House of Tyche. The garden inscription has parallels at Tell el-Farama and Shiqmona near Haifa (with the same misspelling). The inscription from the entrance hall has parallels at Pompeiopolis and Krokodeilon Polis near Caesarea (SEG 56 (2006): 1891). Click to hear Dr. Schuler on KFUO radio discussing inscriptions from 2011, the James Box, and doing archaeology in Israel, from a broadcast on 18 October. As I work on data from the 2011 season, I appreciate more the wealth of the peristyle house to the east of the Northeast Church. Now that we have a beautiful garden entrance with an inscription in tabula ansata wishing “Good Fortune” for the builder, this second reference to “Fortune (Tyche)” motivates us to rename this peristyle house as the House of Tyche. Imagine entering the garden from the street . . .
Listen to Dr. Mark Schuler discuss the 2011 season with KFUO radio host Roland Lettner on the Studio A program broadcast on Thursday 28 July. Click here for the archive. FYI, it was midnight in Israel when the program went on the air.
After four weeks of work, the archaeology team from Concordia University has successfully completed its work in two excavation zones. In the Northeast Zone, the team uncovered a dramatic entrance to the garden of the House of Tyche graced by an inscription.
From this entry, the ancient visitor would turn south and pass through a doorway into the Entrance Hall of the house, where another inscription would hail the visitor, “Enter for good.”
In the Southwest Zone, the team excavated the Building Alpha complex by digging through 2.5 m of heavy fill. In its final stage, the structure had four rooms: two the the east separated by a window wall,
and two on the west, divided by a central wall.
Interestingly, no doorway to the exterior exists from this level and no evidence of a staircase survives. Watch for more detail and an interim report in the weeks ahead. Thanks to students and volunteers for their hard work, and to our readers and followers for their support. While conserving the mosaic floor in the entry hall of the peristyle house, conservators discovered a small mystery, a pot (Kfar Hananya 3C) hidden in a hole cut in the floor:
Why would a householder cut through a mosaic floor and bury an pot? Fantasies of a treasure hoard circulated wildly. Carefully the pot was uncovered.
Anticipation mounted. Gatit carefully lifted out the pot.
But when we sifted the contents, only bits of glass and bone, some ashy soil, and one nail were found.
The seemingly disappointing results remind us of the words of a preacher from the region of the Sea of Galilee who said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The epigrapher for the excavation, Adam Łajtar from Warsaw, reads the inscription εἴσελθε ἐπʼ ἀγαθῷ. In English, “Enter for good.” It is a greeting to the visitor upon entering the house. After one entered the garden of the peristyle house from the eastern street, one could turn south and enter the house through a doorway into what we are tentatively calling the northeast hall. The room is in the northeast corner of the house. Just inside the doorway, the visitor was greeted by this inscription:
The inscription invites the visitor to “Enter!” However, the end of the inscription is damaged. We are looking for parallels. Congratulations to Glenn Borchers, our senior volunteer, who first noticed the letters in the mosaic floor…
and to the entire team that has worked tirelessly on this most difficult room.
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