Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (12.2000(2001))

CHHIM

LEBANON

BASILICA B

TRIAL PIT IN THE NAVE
The unfortunate incident with the robbing
of the mosaic floor from the nave of
Basilica B in 1999 provided the oppor-
tunity to open a trial pit, measuring 2.00
by 2.00 m, in the middle of a space
delimited by the western wall of the
structure, the colonnades of the aisles and
the presbytery steps. Directly beneath the
lost mosaic floor a thin, barely 10 cm thick
layer of lime mortar bedding with small
and medium-size stones appeared. Under
what should be interpreted as the mosaic
substructure there was a well-preserved
lime floor, some 3 cm thick, laid on brown
soil that had been used to level the
unevenness of the rock. It was the last level
identified in the trial pit, although one
should add a channel cut directly in
bedrock and running along an east-west
line. The channel, some 10 cm wide and
15 cm deep, was plastered to even out its
walls.
The discovered floor is part of a bigger
surface, which in all probability covered
most of the terrace under the Byzantine
basilica. Another part of this floor together
with a plastered bench abutting the wall
was unearthed in 1997 under the bema of
the church. The amphorae and imported
ware sherds above and below this floor are
Roman in date. The similarity of this

surface to the floor under Temple C is
striking. The latter floor had been in use in
the 1st century AD. Hence, it appears
justifiable to think that the area under
Basilica B had been occupied in Roman
times. The channel, used perhaps to head
off water to one of the cisterns, belongs
presumably to an earlier phase. The nearest
cistern is situated in the temenos in front
of Temple C. It is highly probable that
Tower D belongs to one of these earlier
phases, while the entire zone described
here was tied in chronologically and
functionally with the settlement, parts of
which are specifically from the first half of
the 1st century AD.
TRIAL PIT NORTH OF BASILICA B
A small rectangular trial pit (1.50 x
1.00 m) was opened at the foot of a wall
running at an angle from the northern wall
of the basilica. The foundations of this wall
were revealed, thus making it clear that the
dressed blocks had been positioned directly
on top of the leveled bedrock surface. The
pottery from the trial pit was Roman (1st-
2nd century AD), although it is hardly a
basis for dating the wall itself. What is
certain is that the course of this wall fits in
practically perfectly with the overall layout
of other substructures of the settlement
dated to Roman times.

TEMPLE C

WORK INSIDE TEMPLE C
The 1999 trial pit inside the 2nd-century
Roman temple was now extended to the
east and west, bringing confirmation of the
stratigraphy reported on previously: below
the lime floor of the 1st century AD there

is a layer containing pottery of the 3rd-2nd
centuries BC, and below this and directly
upon bedrock, another layer yielding
scarce evidence of Greek and Persian wares
of the 5th-4th centuries BC with a few
Iron Age fragments mixed in.

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