»Dig for a Day« with the Archaeological Seminars Institute

Abstract

The ancient Hellenistic city of Maresha was the capital of Idumea and contains thousands of subterranean rooms. These chambers were filled approximately 2200 years ago with tons of debris that appears to have been dumped into them from the dwellings that once existed above them on the surface. During the course of the excavation we discovered that some of these rooms contained up to nine meters of unstratified debris. The fill includes pottery sherds, complete local and imported vessels, Greek and Aramaic ostraca, coins, jewelry, animal bones, amphora stamps, figurines as well as many bricks from the dwellings on the surface. These many finds detail the everyday life of the inhabitants of Maresha; a cosmopolitan city that included Idumeans, Nabateans, Arabs, Phoenicians, Judeans, along with many other ethnic groups.