Pottery washing in a Roman bathhouse

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P is for POTTERY washing.
Please take a look at other P words and pictures at ABC Wednesday.

At the Tiberias dig we normally wash potsherds two afternoons a week, under the semi-porous black shade cloth you see above.

But rain was falling Friday morning, making digging impossible. So we did pottery washing instead, in the only covered structure around--a 4th century Roman bathhouse.

So well-built is was, that it functioned as a bathhouse for 800 years.

The roof put up by the antiquities people in the 20th century to protect the colored mosaic floors already has holes.

Sa'id is the watchman who sleeps at the site every night for the whole month of the dig, rain or shine. During the day he does archaeology with us.

Ten hired Bedouins also work at the dig.

See the buckets lined up? We were catching run-off from the roof to use as our clean water in which to brush the shards.

Most of the volunteers spread out and work in silence.

Hmm, pottery washing as a meditative practice?

But the young people sat in a side room of the bathhouse and no doubt had a good conversation.

Sometimes I wonder what the Romans would think if they could hear and see us modern folks working in their buildings. Maybe they can . . .

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BTW, for readers of previous posts who asked how to join a dig, I added some links in yesterday's Comments. Hope to see you in the field someday!

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