Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (17.2005(2007))

ESHMOUN

LEBANON

ESHMOUN VALLEY
PRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE SECOND
SEASON OF THE SURVEY, 2005
Krzysztof Jakubiak, Michal Neska

The second season of the Polish-Lebanese survey1 of the upper part of the Auali (Eshmoun)
river valley commenced on September 1, 2005. Fieldwalking was completed by the end of the
month. The area covered this year extended from where the survey had finished last year at
a point west of Marmousa Chapel to the convents of Deir es-Saide and Deir er-Rahbat near
Joun. Several places surveyed last year were rechecked owing to new information about the
existence of rock-cut tombs collected in the last days of the first season of fieldwalking.
Another pursuit was to explain the total absence of surface finds in the vicinity of the Roman
temple at Bisri, tentatively attributed to river erosion.
The actual surveying was divided into two zones, the bottom of the valley being
fieldwalked by one group and the slopes by another one, the latter team having to deal with
heavy bush cover, which hardly made the prospection easy. The following report is by necessity
brief and presents only the most important observations made during the survey.

1 The Polish team included the present writers co-directing the effort, accompanied by Mrs. Olga Wasilewska, Mrs. Zofia
Zakrzewska, Mr. Maciej Mielecki and Mr. Piotr Witkowski, archaeologists; and Mr. Maciej Krajcarz, geologist. The
Lebanese team headed by Mr. Asa'ad Seif, who is also Project Director on the Lebanese side, included Dr. Corine
Yazbek, archaeologist; Mr. Abdallah Ala'Eddine, ceramologist; and Mr. Wissam Khalilin, archaeologist.
Sedimentologist and speleologist Dr. Fadi Nader, Director of the Institute of Geology of the American University of
Beirut, kindly consulted our findings.
The project is grateful to Mr. Frederic Husseini, Director General of Antiquities in Lebanon, for permission to continue
the survey and for his unfailing support at every step of the project.

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