the first picture taken in Israel...And it's Nikolai. On the bus at the airport
This is Chris...He is our friend from Tennessee! But he does to Concordia Wisconsin.
Jacob Mueller
The mountain that they think was the site of Jesus' transfiguration
Some houses and artwork on buildings...somewhere around Israel
I thought this was cool. Most people have silver or white cars here. and everyone has cars. there are only a few trucks
The Sea of Galilee..this is the view as we were driving down the mountain to get on the other side to the Kibbutz
Sea of Galilee again. Notice the farming and such. It's everywhere around here.
The College girls room. This is mine and Jess' side
Liz and Christine's side...It's a kind of small room. So it's tight
The Cathedral at Hippos. Huge pillars that were knocked down during the earthquake
everyone listening to Dr. Schuler talk about the site
The elaborate stonework that was on the floor in the cathedral
Beautiful collums
The beautiful stone work of the Romans...Hand carved by the way. I'd like to see someone nowadays do that
Baptismal font in the catherdal
The kibbutz is the green area below us, and then this is the view we have from Hippos...Amazing!
Decumanus Maximus (The east/west street in a Roman City)
Dr. Schuler talking about the tomb of the old lady they dug up last year
Our Church
Cool Sign
This is the reason we are digging holes to do deep probes. Something could be under our church!
A wine press
Huge tub like things that the grape juice would go into after it was pressed
Jake and Christine
Niko...pointing at....I dont know
Cliff
Kursi...the site commemorating the story of Luke 8:26-39..Where Jesus cast out demons from a man into the swines
The elaborate tile work these people did. wow!
The next picture is of what this says
Olive presses I believe
Capernaum...I love this picture :)
These were amusing to us
The octagonal church above Peter's house
Peter's house below the glass
Beautiful stone
The the stone under the limestone (the white stone) is supposedly part of the original synagogue where Jesus taught
We were at Tabgha.,.Schuler read us a Bible passage pertaining to the site we were at
Again. Amazing tile work
This is the site of the first feeding of the 5,000....Notice the loaves and the fish
The Sea of Galilee...Hippos is almost exactly across from us...not sure if you can see it...
The beginning of the panoramic view of the Sea of Galilee from the Church of the Beatitudes
The thought the gates to the church were cool
Not sure what that says...
Prickly Pear!!
Eating breakfast..yummy
I'm already covered in dirt. haha
Our Square
They are working on a mosaic under there
Nathan...one of my digging buddies
Hiiii
Jess and Arnie surveying the area
A cool shot. Everything on the right is gone now
Derryl and Nathan Picking
Jake waiting
Good Morning! After a couple hours of digging..we've exposed some of the wall
An artsy shot of buckets?
Water break! every 30 minutes
This is our pile of Dirt. And behind it a pile of rocks
This all has come from about 3 feet of digging...The dirt and the rocks behind it
The Tractor hard at work
We had a couple group tours come through the site today..Apparently people want to see what we have done and what we are doing :)
Dirty before Breakfast
A huge Pilaster corner piece that they dug up in A
The Valley Below
The Infamous Arnie Net..used for moving large heavy pieces of rock and other things
Proper heavy lifting technique :)
We made it a corner piece, marking the corner of one of the site edges
I took pictures of all the tools we use...This is the Wheel Barrel
Buckets
Turia (Spelling?)
Pick axe...and a brush in the corner
A trowel
and a Hand pick axe
A thresh hold of a door...It was up pretty high, so it's probably for the top of the door, and it fell over in the earthquake
It was near the surface area, but the Israeli young lady working with the University of Haifa, said it was definitely Byzantine and she had seen them before in the museum. The piece was in the wrong area, meaning it should have been found in a week after digging. It is hypothesized that it may have been unearthed by an earth mover as the Israeli army was fortifying the area in the 60's.
Darryl..who found it
Close up
Cleaning up for the day...We did quite a bit of work
Everyone sitting outside the lab on their computers...:)
This is what we get the privilege of seeing every night
Liz was carrying some buckets back up to the site, and she left them outside...we found a little friend on it.
In Honor of Canada day, they zip-tied a Canadian Flag to the tent
Team Destruction (Our team :)) was assigned to work on taking down this bulk for an hour every morning.
Some canadians...relaxing on the job...:) It was a water break. ha. And there is professor Jim Gimbel too
Nathan working on the Bulk
We got maybe a foot taken off of it. It takes a lot longer than you think!
Quinn, the ever so canadian Canadian. He is a very funny guy
The day is almost over!!!
Our two piles...Dirt/rocks....and Rocks
I slipped right into the hole..so they gave me a pick axe. I'm the Queen of the group
I am the bucket Queen :)
We are cutting into our square now. See the Doorway starting to appear?
A square....They are uncovering a beautiful mosaic under the black tarp
They uncovered a staircase..leading to nowhere at this point. They took out a column too
Christine taking measurments
Good 'ole Niko
They have a pretty deep hole there
The column that they took out of the hole. The guy who drives the tractor is amazing. he is so good at what he does
This is the rock that got me a beer :)
You can see the blocked doorway we have in our square...that means there is another one somewhere else. We haven't found it yet
Arthur Seagul..This guy is a genius. He's the head of the whole excavation, and professor of Archeology at the University of Haifa
Sitting on columns in the main Forum area listening to Arthur
The Kibbutz. So cool!
They started excavating this church because they thought it was a synagogue, but once they had evidence that it wasn't, they stopped. There is a pretty mosaic under the tarps
the HUGE cistern at Sussita
The southern wall. There is a trap door there
the view from up here is just amazing
There is a roman soldier's foot print under that column
Ancient City of Gamla
You can see the Kinneret in the distance. No wonder they chose this spot
You can kind of see the Wall that surrounded their city
A Catapult the Romans Used to breach the wall!
So pretty up there!
The Synagogue..This one doesn't face east, it faces SW towards Jerusalem.
That's the Gamla Stream. You could hear the water running
We climbed all the way to the top
it was so cool
I was at one of the most ancient Synagogues in Israel :)
You can just picture the people sitting around
A cupboard!
Ian in the Synagogue, I'm down below
HEY YOU!
This is where the Romans breached the wall
A much smaller cistern than Sussita
I love this picture
On our way to Tel Dan...I forgot what city this was
The wading pool at Tel Dan. The water was soooo cold! I can see why the Danites picked this spot though
They are still doing some excavation here
The throne that was in the picture before this
The oldest gate still standing in the Middle East. The triple Arch.
Part of the Arch. So cool. I looked inside.
Quinn can't get over that those bricks are from that time. You could still see the straw in it
An Altar of some kind
There are pictures of the "High Place" a little later on in this album
There was a bunker used a while back to protect Israeli ground. The boarders to Lebanon are not too far away. Keep looking at the pictures
Machine gun Turret still there
Even the Soldiers bed is still there
See those mountains past that City? That's Lebanon
Mount Hebron. The Tallest mountian in Israel...They actually get a large amount of snow up there...so, they go skiing!
The gate into Lebanon. I'm not kidding, we were really close to the boarders
The "Higher Place" This is where the slaughtered animals for offerings
Site of the Golden calf? and offerings
And this is where my camera died. :)
WO LU Staff 08-09
