Roman mansion in Jerusalem

EXCAVATION: UNCC archaeology team in Jerusalem unearths 1st-century mansion (REID CREAGER, Charlotte Observer)

• UNC Charlotte team unearths lavish, lower-level rooms from the time of Jesus
  
• Remains of early Roman mansion ‘extraordinarily well preserved,’ says dig director Shimon Gibson
  
• This summer’s find: a complete vaulted room

Shimon Gibson marvels at a depth of irony that’s borderline mythological: While digging up Jerusalem’s past, he’s also digging up his own.

The UNC Charlotte adjunct professor of archaeology has been co-directing an annual dig on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion that returns him to the historic, mysterious region he first explored as an 8-year-old. The UNCC team is using maps Gibson made in 1975 – at age 17 – as it uncovers unprecedented findings that provide important clues about life in first-century Jerusalem.

UNCC student Brijesh Kishan calculates elevations at the site of the Mount Zion dig. UNCC student Brijesh Kishan calculates elevations at the site of the Mount Zion dig. Rachel Ward UNCC “This dig is the only academic archaeological expedition currently working in Jerusalem,” said Gibson, 57, an English native. “UNCC did some probes in the early 2000s, but it was in 2006 and 2007 that we really started excavating.”

This summer his crew has continued to investigate a finished bathroom it discovered in 2013, on the lower levels of what it believes to be an early Roman mansion. The team also found another complete vaulted room, again easing decades of concerns by archaeologists that remains from first-century Jerusalem were poorly preserved.

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HT Joseph Lauer.