Tiberias: Excavations in the House of the Bronzes, Final Report, Volume I: Architecture, Stratigraphy and Small Finds
This volume is the first of the two-volume final report of the salvage excavations carried out in Tiberias in 1998. The main architectural remains are those of a well-built quarter of the Fatimid period displaying evidence of urban planning. One of the structures was named “The House of the Bronzes” after the hoard of hundreds of bronze vessels, as well as parts of vessels and scrap, found in three large pottery vessels, two sunk under the floor and the third placed behind a wall. This was most likely a workshop engaged in the repair and production of metal vessels. The pithoi also contained 85 coins, most of them Byzantine coins dated 976–1078 CE. Consequently, the hoard appears to have been deposited at the end of the eleventh century. It is the largest and richest assemblage of Fatimid-period vessels ever excavated. The current volume deals with the architecture and stratigraphy of the site, as well as presenting reports on the finds other than the metal vessels of the hoard: coins, pottery, glass, bone and stone items, archaeozoological remains and shells. It also includes scientific analyses of the metal vessels and the coins. A second volume (by E. Khamis) to be published shortly will present the vessels of the metalwork hoard.