Today we visited some Chalcolithic sites as one big happy family. First we stopped at Tel Teo.

A man in tall grass, checking out Tel Te’o

Tel Te’o is a very tiny tel. A small portion of the site was excavated in advance of road development. The Tel Te’o publication states that there is evidence of the Pre-pottery Neolithic B, Pottery Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Early Bronze IA, and the Early Bronze II. It was fairly hard to see anything on the surface due to the long grasses and thistles. We did see some basalt and pottery and some large stone walls on the surface

The gang at Tel Te’o

Some folk stayed at the road side to get an overall view of the tel (“I thought that tells were huge and you could see them from anywhere” direct quote from one of our excavators).

We found a skeleton!

After Tel Te’o we made our way to Rujm el Hiri, which is a standard weekend visit for the Marj Rabba crew. This year we found a cow skeleton – a poor cow that was quite old and suffered from some calcification on its bones.

Girl power at Rujm el Hiri

Rujm el Hiri is an ancient megalithic monument, consisting of concentric circles of stone with a tumulus at center. For many the site is believed to be an ancient observatory and stellar calendar. Today we saw evidence of this in the form of coloured crystals left on the basalt structure. Perhaps folk were visiting during the summer solstice?

Talking about the landscape

Jocelyn R. checks out some crystals left at the site.

Joyce F. prepping for the walk back to the van.

After two site visits we stopped off on the way home at the Golan Brewery – makers of the Bezelet (basalt) Beer.

Rewards after a morning of Chalcolithic sites.