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Page:Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894.djvu/218

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178
NOTES ON THE PLAIN OF JERICHO.

presented the appearance of irregular low mounds, with no walls appearing, rising at their highest point not 20 feet above the surrounding plain. The place was supplied with water by an aqueduct crossing the Wady el Nuwei'meh, described in the "Memoirs." The heaps of ruins may be subdivided into three parts, with low depressions between them. The First Heap (beginning at the south) has a depression in the centre, and evidently represents an open square, with buildings about it. It is strewn with

ribbed pottery of a Roman type, bits of iridescent glass, small cubes of tessellated pavement, fragments of marble wall-lining, beautifully veined, about one inch thick, a capital of a column and a capital of a pilaster. The former had a diameter of 25 inches, and was 1912 inches high. I also found one pottery ledge-handle, a pre-Israelitish type which came down to later Jewish times. We also noticed a hewn stone, some 35 inches in circumference, in the shape of a bulb broken off at the top and bottom.