My Israel birthday was wonderful! I watched the sunrise, as is becoming my custom, on the Sea of Galilee and was actually in bed by 9:30 (despite my birthday, I still had to wake at 3:55am).

Today was very hot. I continued to work in square F2 and am thrilled to say that I found a small artifact!

Note from Dr. Schuler - “Jacob LaCroix made the first significant discovery of a small artifact at the Hippos Excavations. He holds in his hand part of a copper chain for a polycandelon a decorative lamp used in Byzantine liturgical spaces.

A typical polycandelon would hold three to seven glass oil lamps, thus the name ”poly-candelon.” The fragmentary medallion in the middle of the chain is a copper disk with four l-shaped sections cut out forming a cross.

This polycandelon is the first liturgical implement discovered in six season of work on the Northeast Church at the Hippos Excavations”.

With that inspiration – the remainder of the day was very exciting. Later, one of the managing archeologists from the Univ of Haifa helped us find a number of nails and led pieces with his medal detector.

This afternoon I chatted a bit with one of our Australian teammates named Fred. Fred is very intelligent, artistic and well rounded gentleman who is a retired flutist and who serves as a priest in a Melbourne. We had a great and exciting conversation about the Old Testament and Holy Communion. Our lab was filled with activity this evening - but by now most have run off to sleep.

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