The 1997 season of excavations by the University of South Florida took place from May 8-23. The staff included the following: Prof. James F. Strange of the University of South Florida, Director, Prof. Dennis E. Groh of Illinois Wesleyan University, Associate Director, Prof. C. Thomas McCollough, Assistant Director and Field Archaeologist, Ron Levy, Surveyor, Mary Lynn Jones, Registrar, Carolyn Strange, Camp Manager, Frank McKenna, Architect’s Assistant, Kurt Galbreath, Photographer, Winfred McGee, Tools. Students from Illinois Wesleyan University formed the majority of the volunteers.
Six squares were opened, three at the change from basilica to porch and three in the bath complex in the northeast. The hypothesis was that the squares opened in the northeast would complete our understanding of the history of the bath complex and fill in the chronology of the exterior walls of the porches of the basilical building. The stratigraphic record recovered in these structures would also help in bringing some clarity to the 6th-13th C.E. occupation of the building space.
The three areas opened immediately east of the large mosaic panel covering the central floor of the basilical building recovered a spectrum of occupational evidence stretching from the Early Roman to the late Arab occupation. In addition, they revealed critical architectural elements of the basilical building that add important data to our understanding of the plan of the structure.
Square V.114 (James R. Strange), the area most immediately
to the east of the central mosaic panel, contained a patch
of mosaic floor and its rudus in the northwest corner. A
drain was uncovered to the south of this patch. The drain
had been sealed by t he rudus, which suggests that the
mosaic floor was part of the late Roman (late 3rd or early
4th century C.E.) renovation of the building. During this
renovation the earlier drain was sealed up and became part
of the Late Roman mosaic foundation. Any evidence of the
stylobate to the east of the mosaic and its rudus in Square
V.114 was removed in an extensive Late Roman robbing
operation.
The excavation of Square V.116 (Mary Keith) exposed a wall
running southwest-northeast, which is the continuation of
the wall exposed in Square V.111 exposed in 1996. The upper
course of this wall is constructed from reused stones in the
Byzantine period or later. On the other hand, the lower
courses and the foundation date from the Early Roman period.
This ER wall was founded upon a finely-constructed
preexisting wall, perhaps of the Early Hellenistic or even
Persian period. Early Roman disturbance t o bedrock has
disrupted the stratigraphic history of this earlier wall.
The stratigraphy and building sequence of this wall tends to confirm our hypothesis that this wall served as an eastern, external wall to the building, separating it from the porch which extended about 22.5 m. to the Cardo.
In Square V.117 (Dean Patterson), we discovered the
continuation of the courtyard from V.113. The pavement in
its last use dated to the Arab II period. Beneath the Arab
II period layers were traces of the ER building, including
the foundation of the porch, projected from Square V.109.
West of the foundation there was a make-up for the ER porch.
Overlying the ER elements in the northwest corner of Square V.117 was 60 cm. of ash from the Byzantine II to Arab II periods. The last feature in and above this ash was a semi-circular stone structure. A low adjacent pavement of stones (constructed in part from basalt grinders) formed a surface in association with the structure.
The Byzantine bath appeared in Squares V.64, V.65, & V.66 in the northeast corner of the porch of the basilical building. In all three squares, the upper portion of a wall for an interior pool was present. This wall, constructed in the Byzantine I period, enclosed a pool 8 x 3.6 m., extending to a depth of over three meters.
In Square V.64 (Gary Lindstrom), the earlier structures of
the porch are covered by the elements of the Byzantine bath.
Large, reused stones, presumably taken from the north wall
of the Early Roman porch, appear as paving stones for the
Byzantine street north of the bath in this square. Beneath
the paving stones, we exposed a well cut stone (elevation,
259.695) which may be a portion of the Early Roman, outer
wall of the porch of the basilical building.
In Square V.64, to the south of the Byzantine street, the interior space is defined on the west by two stones (elevation at the top, 260.239) that are part of a wall running southwest-northeast. The stones are worn and battered on their top edges in their Byzantine reuse, but appear to be in their Early Roman position. In their Byzantine context, they appear to be defining a small room connected to the bath. A drain running parallel to this wall and immediately to its west was connected with the bath an d was used for the hypocaust, which had been exposed in the area immediately to the west in Square V.86 in previous seasons. A rectangular platform of stones stood parallel to and against the wall. These stones are partially covered with mortar (elevation, 260.130) and may form the foundation for a bench.
Square V.65 (Whitney Folds) contained mainly a pool nearly 3 m. deep. The team recovered a set of steps descending into the pool from northeast to southwest, beginning at a point 25 cm from the southeast corner. The stratigraphy and pottery indicated t hat the bath and pool were no longer in use by the time of the Arab II occupation (10th century C.E.) Arab II robbing of portions of the west, exterior wall of the pool appeared in the northwest of Square V.65.
In Square V.66 (Barbara Pilcher), the eastern wall of the bath was built against large, well-cut stones that may have been robbed from the outer wall of the porch of the basilical building. These stones were used to pave part of the north-south street ( the Cardo) in the early Byzantine era. The soil excavated further east of these stones exposed a series of compact, crushed limestone and plaster surfaces that served as the continuation of the paved Cardo. These surfaces replaced the Roman paving stones robbed in the Byzantine II era. Evidence of the existence of an road prior to the Roman paving stones had been recovered in previous seasons by sectioning the soil beneath the 2nd century pavers (see, D. Edwards and T. McCollough, "The Roman Road at Sepphoris" in Galilee in the Greco-Roman and Byzantine Period: Archaeology and Text in Context, ed. D. Edwards and T. McCollough, Scholars Press, 1997, pp. 112-26).
(Submitted by James F. Strange, Dennis E. Groh and C. Thomas McCollough)
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