End of Week 1 Update

Greetings from the Holy Land!

It is now the conclusion of the first week of digging at El-Maqatir. Thankfully, God has been good and has kept everyone safe, even in spite of all of the hard work being done. Consequently I wish to thank everyone who has been praying for this work to help provide facts for those seeking to defend the faith which is perceived to be mere fantasy and myth and all of the volunteers helping to achieve that goal.

This first week has been a very productive week that has pleasantly surprised the supervisors by putting us ahead of schedule. Through all of this work and the help from our expert with the metal detector we have found over one hundred coins. In addition to this, we have also found a storage pit with large pieces of pottery within. While these pieces of pottery only date back to the first century, other discoveries have included pottery from the Iron Age, the era of the judges shortly following the conquest under Joshua. Pictured to the left is the handle of such a storage jar, the key indicators of its age being the darker shade of red and the white specs throughout. Also, this dig has delivered a uniquely striped seal for a storage jar. This is pictured right after cleaning where the red stripe around the top and the lighter bottom.

 

Just as exciting as these discoveries are the visits of various people ranging from local tour guides to representatives from the Israeli Antiquties Authority (IAA). This past week Peretz Reuven, the leading authority in Israel in typology joined us for pottery reading after a day of digging. In addition to this, a local tour guide, who is strongly connected with the work in Shiloh came in for a visit and admiring the work we had achieved. Lastly, though certainly not least of all, a couple of representatives from the IAA stopped in and were greatly impressed with the work that ABR is doing at the site of El-Maqitir. According to them, this dig is now the largest excevation project in Israel and they are thrilled with our progress and exceptional quality of work.

Within square two, where I am personally working with a great team, we have made great progress in making our way down to bedrock. To the right is a picture of our square at the end of the week. Also our team is developing a good relationship with our local worker, who is learning English from us while we are learning Arabic from him. Lord willing, this will develop into an open door to share the testimony of God’s Word through communication and our lives.