Apollonia Arsuf Day 8

As Christiane from Area L would say... "Dear Diary" today was almost surreal with two major developments taking place within our excavation area. The plaster wall that has caused some confusion was confirmed to be of early Arabic origins by the national park supervisor... He explained that planners thought the Arabic wall was some 50 metres to the west, and that they would now need to re-advise the city plans and location for the outer wall for this period based on our excavations.

In addition, one of our initial quadrants where we disovered a corner of the crusader wall has been excavated further with a mechanical digger, revealing the crusader city walls to a depth of roughly 7 metres and a corner turret similar to the types found at Caesaria. This has also proved different from the initial city plans for the crusader period. Firsty by the type of turret which protrudes outwards into the moat, rather than a square turret which is alligned along the moat wall. And secondly by the placement of where the city wall runs north from our tower in Area L. Due to our excavation, part of the focus for next season at Apollonia 2010 will be based at Area L and remain exposed as a tourist attraction for park visitors. All attendees within Area L should be very proud of their efforts. They have worked extremely hard and produced a text book excavation site that has certainly made a difference within the wider picture of Apollonia Arsuf.... Big thanks to Hillary, Arlene, Christiane, Claire, Francesca, Stephen, Wan, Chris and the additonal students from Israel. 

In addition, we've reached the Byzantine layer in other quadrants of Area L and have a linear Byzantine wall running underneath the Early Arabic city wall. Additional finds from today included a small coin, possibly Byzantine.