Humayma
Project Name: The 2009 Season of Archaeological Excavations at Humayma
Duration: April 22 – May 5, 2009
Sponsor: University of Victoria
Director: Robert Schick
Representative: Haroun al-Amarat
The short two-week season of archaeological excavations at the site of Humayma focused on three of the five known Byzantine period churches at the site.
Three probes were dug in the C101 Lower Church in the west center of the site, which had been extensively excavated in the 1991, 1992 and 1993 seasons, to answer specific questions about architectural phasing. The first probe was dug in the north side apse below the pavement level in recently disturbed soil down 2 meters to sterile soil in order to determine whether the north side apse and the central apse bonded or abutted. The three wall courses and further foundation courses exposed below the pavement level bonded, confirming that the north side apse and the central apse were constructed at the same time, rather than belonging to different building phases.
A second probe was dug outside the southeast corner of the C101 church in order to investigate the phasing of the east wall of the church and a wall line running to the east from its southeast corner. The probe dug down 2 meters to sterile soil exposed the foundation courses of the east church wall and the wall running east, and showed that the two walls bonded. But the probe also uncovered a new wall with two courses of blocks and four foundation courses and an associated plaster floor running east-west but not aligned with the other walls. This new wall clearly belonged to a pre-church phase building, the first definite evidence that there had been a pre-existing structure at the site before the church was built. The western portion of this pre-church wall had been removed during the construction of the east wall of the church (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1. The probe outside the southeast corner of the C101 church, showing the pre-church wall
A third probe was dug outside the southwest corner of the C101 church in order to understand better the relative architectural phasing of the church and the row of rooms to its south. The probe dug almost 2 meters to sterile soil uncovered dump layers filled with pottery and animal bones from the Nabatean period that were later cut through for the foundation courses of the west wall of the westernmost room in the row south of the church and the later foundation courses of the south wall of the church. The excavation shows that the row of rooms along the south side of the church predated the construction of the church; their common north wall was partially cut into for the construction of the south wall of the church, leaving no clear face for the south wall of the church or the north face of the north wall of the south row of rooms.
The C119 Upper Church, on a hill sloping up to the west in the far west area of the site, was a small single-apsed basilica, with side rooms flanking the apse to the north and south. Only a few days of excavation had been carried out there during the 1993 season. But recent illicit digging had churned up a great deal of soil in the church, exposing some of the architectural features of the church. That enabled us to document the architectural features of with minimal effort.
The recently churned-up soil was removed in the northeast area of the church down to the northern portion of the elevated chancel area and portions of the pavement in the north aisle and nave west of the chancel. The elevated chancel consisted of a step up and a row of blocks that would have once supported chancel screen panels; only a couple of small fragments of the marble panels were found. The pavement within the chancel area, as well as the nave and north aisle, consisted of sandstone pavers. The two free-standing arch piers in the north E-W row were also exposed (Fig. 2). Excavation along the west wall of the church exposed a doorway in the center, leading to uninvestigated rooms farther to the west. The floor of the church interior here consisted of leveled bedrock.
Fig. 2. General view of the C119 church
The eastern portion of the B126 Church, in the east center of the site, had been built over in the 1960s by a building used as a barn and was the target of only a couple of days of work in the 1996 season. Recently the thatched roof of the modern building had been removed, making it easier to work in the interior and document the architectural features of the church. The modern barn deposits were removed down to the original flagstone pavement, which was partially preserved in the apse and to its west (Fig. 3). One of the intact pavers in front of the apse covered an undisturbed, but empty, stone reliquary (Fig. 4). A stone slab bearing a Latin inscription with 13 preserved letters was also found out of place on top of the flagstone pavers in the apse. Excavation below the pavement level to the south of the apse confirmed that most of the extant walls other than the apse itself belong to the 1960s building.
Fig. 3. General view of the B126 church
Fig. 4. The reliquary
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