Area A (Figs. 2, 3). The excavation yielded a drainage channel that ran in an east–west direction (L103). The channel was bounded on the north by a stone embankment (W1; Fig. 4), and was probably bounded on the south with a similar embankment, but it was not preserved. The channel was dug into a layer of red clay soil (L105), apparently resulting from erosion of Givʽat Hamra. Pottery sherds ascribed to the Early Roman period (first century CE), including a discus lamp (Fig. 5:6) and a Herodian lamp (Fig. 5:7), were discovered in this layer.
Flat basalt stones, probably paving the channel’s floor were exposed at the bottom of a probe that was excavated inside the channel, slightly south of the embankment wall. Also discovered at the bottom of the probe were pottery sherds from the Early Roman period (first century CE), including a krater (Fig. 5:2), a casserole (Fig. 5:3) and a jar (Fig. 5:4). In the upper part of the probe were ceramic artifacts that date from the Late Roman period (second century CE), including a juglet (Fig. 5:5), sherds from the Byzantine period (fourth-fifth centuries CE), including a bowl (Fig. 5:1), and three coins, one from the first century CE (Table 1:22) and two from the end of the fourth century CE (Table 1:23, 24). In the upper part of the channel, along the embankment wall, was a narrow strip of eroded earth (L103). The soil in the strip was mixed with stones, abraded sherds, coins (Table 1:6–19) that range in date from the Seleucid dynasty(?) to the reign of Emperor Marcian (450–457 CE), metallic items, colored tesserae of various sizes and a gold leaf (Fig. 6). It seems that the soil and the finds in it had been swept into the channel, which was not cleaned out once it ceased to be used.
Based on the artifacts found in the channel, it seems that it was dug in the Early Roman period and was used until the fifth century CE. In the Late Ottoman period, the area was covered with loose, black agricultural soil (L101) that contained numerous pottery sherds and coins from several periods (Table 1:1–5). A lead rifle bullet from the Ottoman period (eighteenth–nineteenth century CE) that dates from the time when the area was covered with top soil was discovered on the stones of the embankment at the bottom of the layer of agricultural soil.
Area B. A terra-cotta pipe was discovered during the preliminary inspection of the area. A backhoe was used to excavate a trench (c. 1 × 10 m) to expose the entire length of the terra-cotta pipe (diam. c. 0.1 m; Figs. 7, 8). The pipe was placed on the ground, along a northeast–southwest axis. It continued northward, beyond the limits of the excavation, and was severed in the south by modern construction debris that had been buried there. The pipe was built of homogeneous terra-cotta sections, each of which had a wide end and a narrow end (Fig. 5:8); the narrow end of the pipe was inserted into the wide end of the pipe located behind it. A thin layer (thickness 0.3 m) of soil devoid of finds accumulated over the pipe, above which was a thick layer (c. 1 m) of loose, black agricultural soil, similar to that found in Area A. Based on the location and alignment of the pipe, it may have conveyed water from one of the distribution pools along the city’s aqueduct to the city’s western cemetery or to its western suburbs.
The drainage channel uncovered in Area A was dug in the Early Roman period, no later than 70 CE, and went out of use in the fifth century CE. It may have been dug to regulate the drainage of Caesarea Philippi when the city was rebuilt by Agrippa II in 54–61 CE. It seems that the channel ceased to be used due to changes in the drainage regime of the area. It was probably at that time, when the embankment that bordered the channel on the south was destroyed. Due to the changes in the drainage regime, no pottery sherds or coins that postdate the fifth century CE were swept into the channel. The coins discovered in the channel—from the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods—reflect the city’s centrality and the commercial ties of its inhabitants with the residents of other cities in the Eastern Roman Empire. It was only in the Late Ottoman period that the channel and its surrounding area were covered with soil for the purpose of preparing the land for agriculture (
Tepper 2007)
.
The terra-cotta pipe exposed in Area B was probably part of the city’s ancient water system. The water conveyed in the pipe may have been drinking water for the city’s suburbs, or served for washing or for preventing fires resulting from the cremation of corpses in the cemetery.
Table 1. Coins
No.
|
Locus
|
Basket
|
Ruler
|
Date
|
Mint
|
Bibliography
|
IAA No.
|
1
|
101
|
1010
|
Constantine I
|
330–335 CE
|
Antioch
|
|
158025
|
2
|
101
|
1045
|
Valens
|
364–367 CE
|
|
|
158029
|
3
|
101
|
1050
|
|
383–395 CE
|
|
|
158030
|
4
|
101
|
1019
|
|
Fifth century CE
|
|
|
158028
|
5
|
101
|
1061
|
al-Salih Salih al-Din Hajji II
|
1388–1389 CE
|
Damascus
|
|
158047
|
6
|
103
|
1026
|
Seleucid(?)
|
First century BCE
|
|
|
158035
|
7
|
103
|
1027
|
Agrippa II
|
67 CE
|
Panias(?)
|
|
158036
|
8
|
103
|
1054
|
Domitian
|
81–96 CE
|
Caesarea
|
|
158041
|
9
|
103
|
1021
|
Nabataean
|
First century CE
|
|
|
158046
|
10
|
103
|
1039
|
Commodus
|
177–192 CE
|
Canatha
|
|
158043
|
11
|
103
|
1009
|
Roman provincial
|
Second–third centuries CE
|
|
|
158031
|
12
|
103
|
1023
|
Constantine I (after his death)
|
341–346 CE
|
Antioch
|
|
158033
|
13
|
103
|
1020
|
|
351–361 CE
|
|
|
158032
|
14
|
103
|
1031
|
|
364–375 CE
|
|
|
158037
|
15
|
103
|
1048
|
Arcadius
|
378–383 CE
|
|
|
158042
|
16
|
103
|
1047
|
|
378–383 CE
|
Antioch(?)
|
|
158045
|
17
|
103
|
1024
|
Theodosius I or II
|
Fourth or fifth century CE
|
|
|
158034
|
18
|
103
|
1034
|
Theodosius II
|
425–450 CE
|
|
|
158044
|
19
|
103
|
1032
|
Marcian
|
450–457 CE
|
|
|
158026
|
20
|
104
|
1013
|
Roman provincial
|
104/5–166/7 CE
|
Tyre
|
|
158039
|
21
|
104
|
1022
|
|
Fifth–sixth centuries CE
|
|
|
158038
|
22
|
105
|
1028
|
Roman provincial
|
44/5–75/6 CE
|
Sidon
|
|
158040
|
23
|
105
|
1060
|
Arcadius
|
393–395 CE
|
|
|
158027
|
24
|
105
|
1044
|
|
395–408 CE
|
Cyzicus(?)
|
|
158000
|