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239 CAESAREA ANCIENT HARBOUR EXCAVATION PROJECT 1984 SEASON From May 21 to June 30, 1984 archaeological excavation was carried out on land and in the sea at Sebastos, the ancient harbour of Caesarea Maritima, as part of the fifth season of the Caesarea Ancient Harbour Excavation Project (CAHEP) . This project is administered by the Center for Maritime Studies of the University of Haifa. Cooperating member institutions are the University of Victoria, British Columbia, the University of Colorado-Boulder, and the University of Maryland. The project director is Dr. Avner Raban (Haifa); co-directors are Prof. John Oleson (Victoria), Prof. Robert Hohlfelder (Colorado), Dr. R. Lindley Vann (Maryland). Funding for this season's excavations was provided by all four participating institutions, the Baron Rothschild-Caesarea Foundation, Mr. Morris Hatter, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Geographic Foundation. The staff of fifteen archaeologists, architects, and technicians was assisted by over 100 volunteers from Israel, Canada, the U. S. A., England, Australia and Japan. The city and harbour of Caesarea, named in honor of the Emperor Augustus, were built on a grand scale by Herod the Great, between 22 and 9 BC. In previous years CAHEP has uncovered evidence for the design of the main harbour breakwaters and the techniques used in their construction. In this fifth season the four co-directors were searching for answers to specific questions of design and chronology, in preparation for final publication of the results. Several trenches were cut into the mass of the northern breakwater (Area H) to clarify the design of the inner face (see Plan, p. 242) . The south breakwater has a quay at this position, but 240 JOHN P. OLESON no evidence for a similar feature could be found on the more compact northern breakwater. Rubble fallen from the structure, however, had preserved a large deposit of pottery that will yield important data on the chronology of harbour use, and has shown the western Mediterranean origin of many of the ships using the harbour. A cache of 60 mid-fourth c. AD bronze coins recovered with the pottery. A series of Iines was laid across the north and south breakwaters at selected points to allow the production of section drawings. The data recovered will allow reconstruction of the arrangement of materials on the breakwaters, and their original mass. Excavation in rubble blocking the harbour entrance (Area D), has shown that the channel was more than 25 m wide. Remains of the quay on the tip of the southern breakwater suggest that the opening may have been as wide as 50 m. Such a dimension would have made entry easier for ships, but also increased the difficulty of closing. A sounding at the south face of a round tower (known from previous years) in the modern harbour basin reached bedrock and a foundation course 2.6 m below present sea level. The tower itself, which survives to a height of 1.5 m, rests on a thin layer of mud, showing that it was built in a protected basin. The design of the tower and the ceramics associated with it suggest a date in the 2nd c. BC. It may have been built to guard an inner basin or closed harbour of Straton1s Tower, the small Hellenistic settlement that preceded Caesarea. At least in the Roman period there was a channel adjacent to the south face of the tower that gave entry to a shallow inner basin now covered by the land. This year for the first time CAHEP carried out large scale land excavations along the eastern quay wall of this inner basin (Area I), where a mooring stone was uncovered in a probe last season. Adjacent to the quay, the basin was 1.5 m deep, but the bedrock forming its floor slopes steeply to the west, providing greater depth for ships to manoeuver. At a later date, when the sea level was lower, or as a result of local tectonic action, a pavement of massive CAESAREA ANCIENT HARBOUR EXCAVATION 241 stone slabs was laid on the dry basin floor in front of the former quay. The design of the...

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