THE FISHPOOL in Heshbon. During the third season of excavations at Heshbon, we uncovered a most intriguing Iron Age structure in Area B on the shelf just below the acropolis. About 30 feet under- neath the present surface and under a 15-foot-deep fill, containing mainly pottery of the Iron H Age and the Persian period, a layer of plaster one foot thick was discovered almost as hard as concrete

Horn, Siegfried H.

English

Andrews University

Andrews UniversityDigital Commons @ Andrews UniversityPublications 1973 Season3-28-1974The '73 Dig Yields Its TreasuresSiegfried H. HornAndrews UniversityFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/hisban-excavations-1973-publicationsPart of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology CommonsThis Popular Press is brought to you for free and open access by the 1973 Season at Digital Commons @ Andrews University. It has been accepted forinclusion in Publications by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Andrews University. For more information, please contactrepository@andrews.edu.Recommended CitationHorn, Siegfried H., "The '73 Dig Yields Its Treasures" (1974). Publications. 1.http://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/hisban-excavations-1973-publications/1By MABEL EWERT Jews Light, Kinidle the wick Of this small candle, x. That in its warming flame Another candle may be touched To tight Some other place.  It MARCH 28, 1974 ADVENT REVIEW AND SABBATH HERALD + GENERAL CHURCH PAPER OF THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS  The bottom of Square B.1, excavated in 1973, reached ten meters below the surface. The men are standing on the plaster layer, which was probably the bottom of a water reservoir. THE FISHPOOL in Heshbon. During the third season of excava-tions at Heshbon, we uncovered a most intriguing Iron Age structure in Area B on the shelf just below the acropolis. About 30 feet under-neath the present surface and un-der a 15-foot-deep fill, containing mainly pottery of the Iron H Age and the Persian period, a layer of plaster one foot thick was discov-ered almost as hard as concrete. When we reached this hard plas-ter we thought we had reached bed-rock. So convinced was the staff of Area B that it celebrated a "bed-rock party." However, when we later observed a potsherd embedded in the supposed bedrock, we made a probe. To our great surprise we discovered that the supposed rock was actually a layer of plaster about a foot thick. In fact, it consisted of three distinct layers of plaster, one upon another; each about four inches thick. The lowest of the three layers rested on bedrock, which we penetrated in several places to make sure that this was the case. Potsherds embedded in the plas-ter showed that these layers of waterproof plaster had been laid on bedrock during the Iron Age, and seemed to have been the bot-tom of a huge, open-air water res-ervoir. Pieces of straw and other plant material embedded in the plas-ter were as fresh as if they had been cut from a living plant only a day or two before. When we made this interesting discovery we were naturally re-minded of a Biblical passage in the Song of Solomon 7:4, which men-tions the fishpools in Heshbon as a famous feature of that city, in fact, so famous that poets sang about it in distant Jerusalem. Neither open- Siegfried H. Horn, Ph.D., formerly chairman of the Department of Old Testament, is dean of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Berrien Springs, Michigan.  air pools nor covered cisterns are uncommon in Palestine and if the Heshbon pools had been like any of those in other cities in the coun-try, poets would hardly have men-tioned them. Hence, Heshbon's pools in the city near the Gate of Beth-rabbim must have been an un-usual structure of renown, worth mentioning in songs. We therefore look with anticipation to future seasons of excavations to see what they will reveal in this respect. It is also possible that we have uncovered parts of the upper por-tion of the eastern retaining wall of this water basin. First, an unusual wall was excavated in Square B.2, the Square next to B.1, in which we had found the plaster layer. This wall was constructed in header-stretcher fashion, that is, the stones are laid alternately lengthwise and widthwise. The western face of this wall had been covered with plaster, of which thick patches were still adhering to the wall when we excavated it. Later it was dis-covered that the continuation of this wall was a bedrock scarp, also plas-tered on its western face. In the adjacent Square B.4 two more portions of rock scarp were found, plus a huge rock, now tilted out of place by an earthquake. Its western face had evidently once formed part of the plastered rock scarp already mentioned. The western faces of the various portions of rock scarp, and the plastered header-stretcher wall, formed one straight line. So far, 42 feet have been exposed by ex- Third Season of Heshbon Excavations-2 The '73 Dig Yields Its Treasures By SIEGFRIED H. HORN 8 (332) R&H, MARCH 28, 1974 Right, a probe, cut through three layers of plaster at the bottom of the water reservoir in Square B.1 re-vealed bedrock. Far right, the 11 lines of Aramaic script on this ostracon of the sixth century B.C. list commodities for the king and high officials. cavations, and the total length of this wall is not yet known. It had evidently been a continuous water-proof retaining wall of a water res-ervoir. Only future excavations will show whether the thick layer of plaster at the bottom of Square B.1 should be connected with the plas-tered wall and plastered bedrock scarps in Squares B.2 and B.4. If so, we can be virtually certain to have discovered one of the famous pools of Heshbon. A Written Message Deciphered From the fill of Squares B.1 and B.2 came four ostraca, potsherds containing messages, some written with ink, others scratched into the clay. The text of only one ostracon is well preserved and can be read almost in its entirety. It contains 11 lines of writing in a clear sixth-century B.C. Aramaic script in the Ammonite language. It is a list of rations for the king and other high individuals. Through discoveries of inscriptions made in recent years at Heshbon and at Amman the Am-monite language of Biblical times now emerges as a dialect that was related more closely to the Israel-ite dialect of the northern kingdom than to that of the kingdom of Ju-dah. The Period of the Maccabees. During the Hellenistic period when Heshbon was ruled by the Mac-cabees the water reservoir—if our interpretation of the installation found in Area B is correct—had probably become leaky, perhaps as the result of an earthquake, which is a frequent occurrence in Pales-tine. This would explain why the reservoir, having become useless, had been used as a dump and filled with debris that contained a great amount of earlier pottery. Evidence of extensive building activity during this Maccabean period appeared in several of our excavation areas. The most con-spicuous structure of that time so far unearthed is a strong perimeter  wall that surrounded the acropolis. Founded on bedrock, this well con-structed defense wall of the summit area of the mound, remained in un-interrupted use almost to the end of Heshbon's history. From this period comes also an ostracon, a potsherd containing some Greek letters and several circles written on it in ink. However, the writing makes no sense and it seems safe to say that it is nothing but a school-boy's doodling. Remains of the Roman Period. During the period when the Ro-mans were in control of the whole country, from the first century B.c. to the fourth century A.D., the city of Heshbon was called Esbus. During this period, which included New Testament times, there was great building activity as the extant ruins clearly show. It was the cus-tom of that time to found new structures on bedrock and remove the debris of any earlier buildings before erecting new ones. We archeologists do not like this prac-tice, because it usually means that wherever we discover Roman building remains of any size, no traces of earlier structures are left underneath. In contrast to the architects of Roman times, build-ers in earlier periods usually erected new structures on the remains or debris of earlier ones. During this period the summit of the mound of Heshbon was crowned by an important building, of which only some impressive rem-nants of the foundations and sub-structures remain. In Christian times a large part of these remains were incorporated into the church building erected there. This Roman building on the top of the mound was most probably a pagan temple, which, from its vantage point, over-looked the plains of Moab far and wide. Parts of the monumental stair-way leading from the south to the summit have been uncovered, in-cluding a section of a decorated stone balustrade. One of these  decorated blocks of stone was graciously presented to the expedi-tion by the director of the Depart-ment of Antiquities in Amman and eventually will be incorporated into a fine arts building to be erected on the campus of Andrews University. This fine arts building will become the permanent home of the archeo-logical museum now temporarily housed in the James White Library. In Area C, on the western slope of the mound, we discovered what seems to be a tower of the city's defense system erected in Roman times. A study of the surface fea-tures of the area surrounding this structure supports this suggestion. However, more excavations in that area are needed to confirm or mod-ify this interpretation. Course of a Roman Road One of the extensive projects carried out during the Roman period was the Emperor Trajan's building of a new road in the early second century A.D. This road served as a connecting link between the great north-south trunk road, already existing, and the road that led from the city of Livias near the Jordan to Jerusalem, via Jericho. The north-south road, which more or less followed the course of that ancient road called "the king's high way" in the Bible (Num. 20:17; 21:22), began at Bosra, the capital of the Roman province of Syria, in the north, passed through Philadelphia, the old capital of the Ammonites (now Amman), and Esbus, our Heshbon, and then con-tinued on toward Petra, the color-ful mountain city of the Nabateans. Evidence of Trajan's road-build-ing activity already had been dis- R&H, MARCH 28, 1974 (333) 9 covered during our excavations at Heshbon in 1968 and 1971. For example, we had come upon thick chalky limestone layers that had formed the bed of an access road to the summit of the mound. To trace the course of this road down to Livias in the Jordan valley was one of the aims of our topograph-ical survey team, which was in the field throughout the dig's duration in 1973. By discovering numerous milestones, road stations, and guard towers, as has already been mentioned, the team was able to achieve its objective. Of the finds of the Roman period a mint-new Elagabalus coin de-serves mention. Esbus, the name of Heshbon in Roman times, was an imperial mint only for a short time during the brief reign of Elagabalus (A.D. 218-222). Only a few Esbus coins, of which the British Museum Catalog lists six, are known to exist. From the beginning of our excava-tions in 1968 we had hoped to find Esbus coins in the ruins of the city where they had been struck. Al- Stevie Starling By MARYE TRIM DAWN HELD something special in her handkerchief. She walked care-fully to the house to show Mother. "See what I found under the tree near the gate." Mother peeped in the handkerchief. "Why, it's a poor little starling. Per-haps the wind blew it from its nest." "Please let me keep him," Dawn begged. "I would look after him, really I would." Mother looked again at the baby bird. It had no feathers or down, and was not pretty at all. Its eyes looked bulgy as it quivered in Dawn's little hand. "This may be a sick bird that the mother pushed from the nest," Mother suggested. "Y-es," agreed Dawn. "But I'd like to try to help him." Just then the door opened wide and the wind blew in with Lynne. She ran to see what Dawn held in her cupped hands. "Poor little bird," she whispered. "Mother, may we keep it?" So Mother said, "Since you both want it, I suppose you can try to look after it. But don't be unhappy if the little fellow dies. And if he lives he will be a lot of work." Dawn made a bed in a little box. "There, you poor little thing." And she placed him on the soft cloth among some feathers. "Let's call him Stevie," suggested Lynne. though we discovered scores of coins from various periods during the 1968 season of excavations, and more than a hundred coins in 1971, we found no Esbus coins. How-ever, this past season we came upon a perfect specimen of the wanted coin, the best Esbus coin known to me. On the obverse the head of the emperor is depicted with an inscription around it, while the re-verse shows a picture of a colon-naded temple with a statue, prob-ably of a pagan god, standing in the center. Underneath is the inscrip-tion Esbous, the Greek form of the city's name. Remains of Christian Heshbon. The major witness of the Byzan-tine period, when Heshbon was a Christian city and the seat of a Christian bishop, is the remains of a cathedral built in basilica style. It consisted of a central nave, sepa-rated from its side aisles by rows of five columns each. The remains of this church, which in Christian times occupied the site of the former Roman temple, had been NIOUA, t"Z.1 .41 	.v4.11" do Co  "Yes, yes," agreed Dawn. "Stevie Starling. Now where shall we put him, Mother?" "The best place is close to the stove," Mother decided, "where it is warm." So they kept Stevie Starling close to the warm stove. After a while Dawn called, "He's getting better. Look." They saw Stevie opening his mouth wide and turning his head. "He's hungry!" Mother began mix-ing Stevie some gruel to feed to him from an eye dropper. He did not like it at first, but then he swallowed a little. That was the first of many feeds from the eye dropper, for Stevie Starling opened his beak wide every hour or so. "Keeps me very busy," said Lynne, who looked after the bird while Dawn went to school. "But I don't mind." On the second day Dawn found Stevie stiff and lifeless in his bed. He had grown cold in the night and had died. The children buried him in the gar-den, near the pansy patch. "Poor little Stevie Starling." Dawn wiped her wet eyes. "I wish we had been more careful to keep him warm. But I'm glad we tried to help him." "I'm glad we tried to help him," repeated Lynne, burying her face in a bunch of pansy flowers. "If we ever find another baby bird, we'll do better." partially excavated during the pre-vious two seasons. These excavated parts, including the apse in the east-ern part of the church, and frag-ments of multi-colored mosaic floors, have been described in previous reports of our excavations. The western end of the church, covered by a layer of debris many feet thick, had not been excavated during the two seasons of 1968 and 1971. We hoped to complete the work at the church this past sum-mer and unearth the narthex and western entrance of the church. We accomplished only a part of our aim, because we ran into the unex-pected remains of a well-preserved bath installation, built by the Arabs over the ruins of the western end of the church. The church had probably been destroyed by the Persians in A.D. 614, 20 years be-fore the Arabs invaded and occu-pied the country under their prophet Mohammed. Best-preserved Bath in Jordan This bath of Ayyubid-Mamluk times, the best-preserved installa-tion of this kind in Jordan, consists of several rooms all lying one be-hind the other. Beginning from the south, one enters a small entrance hall that has a stone bench near the door, probably the seat of the door-keeper. Through the next door one enters the actual bathing room, which had a tiled floor, heated from underneath. At the northern wall of this room stands a stone basin that was fed by pipes with hot and cold water from two plastered tanks, situated in the next room. The hot water tank lay right over the fur-nace, built of fired bricks. The fourth and last room of this installa-tion was the furnace room, from which the fire in the furnace was fed. This brief description of the re-sults of the 1973 season of excava-tions shows that this third Heshbon dig was an exciting experience. Since there is still much to be learned from this site, and be-cause certain structures, such as the water reservoir and city wall of Old Testament times, have hardly been touched by our picks, hoes, and trowels, at least two more seasons of excavations are needed to bring the archeological work at Heshbon to a reasonable conclu-sion. The next season of excavations is planned for the summer of 1974 under the direction of L. T. Geraty of Andrews University. I will con-tinue to serve the Heshbon project as adviser. 	 ❑ Concluded 10 (334) R&H, MARCH 28, 1974 

The \u2773 Dig Yields Its Treasures

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The \u2773 Dig Yields Its Treasures

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