Last season 2016 – week 3

Documentation at the site (Photo: K.S.)

The third week of the last season at Ein el-Jarba is over and we are about to embark on our last week, preparing final documentation of architectural features, drawing sections and use photogrammetry for a digital model of the site and its architectural features. In the preceding week we continued excavating walls and installations of the Wadi Rabah period, found clean pottery contexts of the period and further obsidian imports.
Furthermore, we were able to venture even more back in time, as we reached archaeological layers dateable to the Pottery Neolithic period. Although we still lack architectural features or installations securely dateable to this early period, we were able to find artefacts from the layers beneath the Wadi Rabah phase at the site. Finds included so far pottery, sickle-blades, and arrowheads, but last week we were able to retrieve a fragment of a Yarmukian, so-called coffee-bean eyed mother goddess figurine from the late 7th or early 6th millennium BC. This find is among the m

Introduction to work with the Total Station (Photo: K.S.)

ost significant of the current season, as this type of figurine is so far mostly known from Sha’ar HaGolan with only a few examples excavated at other sites in the southern Levant.
We are very excited of the results of the current excavation season, are very much looking forward to our final week at the site before packing up and will you keep updated on more thrilling finds that we hope to uncover!