Raising a sarcophagus

A tractor lifted a sarcophagus out of its tomb July 4. And we continued to dig deeper in Square C4 to find out what that passageway is all about.

Diggers in other squares are working hard on important jobs as well, but the most spectacular event of the day was raising a sarcophagus out of its tomb for the first time in 1,500 years.

A tractor used its backhoe to lift the 2,600-kilogram* stone sarcophagus from its chamber under the altar of the church.

First the driver backed his tractor to the very edge of the church wall above the altar. Then he helped dig leader Mark Schuler hook two heavy-duty yellow straps under the sarcophagus as it lay in the tomb.

The driver opened his window and gave directions in Hebrew to Arthur Segal, the dig director. Arthur translated the directions to English, calling out to English-speaking dig workers standing in the altar area ready to help.

The backhoe easily lifted the huge stone from the tomb. The men in the altar area gently pushed the hovering sarcophagus to a place on the altar floor near the tomb.

When it was safely at rest, people who had come from all over the Hippos dig to watch clapped.


STACKING COFFINS

Now Glenn Borchers can go to work on what was under the heavy sarcophagus — human bones.

We think that someone was buried in a wooden coffin in the chamber under the altar. Later, another body was placed in the heavy stone sarcophagus and it was lowered into the tomb atop the wooden coffin.

Still later, two other dead bodies were placed in the stone sarcophagus. We think it may be three people from the same family, but we just don’t know.

Glenn, a retired soil scientist from Moorhead, Minn., spent much of the dig season in 2004 and 2005 carefully removing bones from the heavy stone sarcophagus removed July 4.

Glenn noticed that the sarcophagus didn’t rest flat on the floor of the tomb. It was up off the floor, tipping a little on some stones.

Reaching underneath, he found nails. We think those nails are from a wooden coffin that decayed long ago.

Now that the big rock sarcophagus is out, Glenn can focus on the burial beneath.

We could see “at least 10” bone fragments from the edge of the tomb after the tractor lifted out the sarcophagus, says dig leader Mark Schuler. “And then we’ve got all this dirt to go through.”

Glenn will climb down a ladder into the tomb each day. He will carefully take out all the bones he can find so a bone expert can study them. We hope we get to know whoever is buried there.


BACK AT THE PASSAGE

Meanwhile, back at the mysterious passageway outside the church, we dug deeper and found a rough wall on one side of the walkway.


The wall curves a little, as you can see in this picture of Irene Abrams digging out the walkway.

The passageway and curvy wall may come from a time later than the nearby church. A farm or shepherd family may have built the curvy wall after the big earthquake in 748 CE.

We will know the curvy wall is later than the church if we reach its bottom and find dirt or more church stuff below it.

But we haven’t reached the bottom of the curvy wall yet. “The deeper we go,” says dig leader Mark Schuler, “the older it gets.”

And what about that door we thought we had from the passageway to the South Vaulted Chamber?

Well, there appears to be an opening to the chamber — but it could be just a window, or a place in the wall where a lot of rocks fell away to create a gap.

“We have pretty well put to bed any hopes that there was a doorway from that passageway into the South Vaulted Chamber,” says Mark. “Of course, watch me eat my words on that with something you guys find tomorrow.” — Marc Hequet

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* To change from centimeters to inches and to make other metric conversions, you can use this site from the state of Washington: www.wsdot.wa.gov/Metrics/factors.htm

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Marc Hequet writes about Concordia University’s excavation at Hippos and other digs as well. Students, teachers and families are welcome to make use of the material as part of a curriculum. Contact Marc with questions via mhequet@sprintmail.com

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WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

Here’s a list of words from this story:

Sarcophagus (sar KOFF ah gus). A rock box for a dead body.

Altar (ALL ter). The front part of a church.

Backhoe. A powerful tractor tool that can both dig and lift.

Translating means hearing a person say somethign in one language and then speaking the same thing in another language.

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CAN YOU DIG IT?

Take this quiz to find out what you learned:

Let’s say you have 100 students in your school. The average weight of the 100 students is 30 kilograms. All together, do you and your classmates weigh more than the stone sarcophagus?

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MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE

Here’s what was happening elsewhere when people buried three individuals in the stone sarcophagus under the altar of our church:

Karate. During the 500s CE**, a group called the Hwarang practiced karate in the country of Silla, later called Korea. These Hwarang were youths picked to receive training as military leaders.

Silk came only from China until the 500s CE, when people in the West learned how to make silk cloth.

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** CE means “common era.” It’s the same as A.D., which means “anno Domini,” Latin for “in the year of our Lord.”

Information in “What Does That Mean” and “Meanwhile, Elsewhere” is from World Book Encyclopedia.