Phase I survey
Pedestrian walkover, shovel testing, and desktop assessment against the license file and historic maps before anyone opens ground.
Archaeonest is stationed in Jerusalem, City of David. Licensed field recording, salvage and season work, construction monitoring, and collections for directors, museums, and landowners. The private crew desk is reviewed at this office. We are not the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Excavation is a last resort. Recording is the first duty. Finds are a public trust. We write context sheets, photographs, and catalog numbers so they still make sense in twenty years — whether the job is a walkover or a season of trenches.
Work is planned against the license file and historic maps, recorded so another crew can continue it, and packed for the named repository in Jerusalem or as the license directs. Client names stay off this site unless a project asks otherwise.
The same recording standard from the first shovel test to the museum store.
Pedestrian walkover, shovel testing, and desktop assessment against the license file and historic maps before anyone opens ground.
Evaluation and data recovery with measured contexts, photography, screening, and a Harris matrix another crew can continue.
Watch during open-cut utilities, grading, and demolition. Work stops for features, the record is made, the contractor resumes.
First aid for fragile and waterlogged material. Packed, labelled, and handed to a conservator with a note on what not to do.
Cataloguing, condition notes, and museum-ready boxes so a store can take a collection without opening every bag on day one.
Grey literature, drawings, and a finds list that match the boxes — written to the license and the archive that will take them.
Excavation teaching that still produces a usable archive. Supervisors sign every sheet. A later crew can continue the trench.
6 files on this page. Givati, Ophel, Emek Tzurim, Old City, Mount Zion, Silwan, Jaffa Gate, Kidron, Abu Tor, Dung Gate, Jewish Quarter, Sultan’s Pool, Hinnom, City of David, Mount of Olives — regional places only. Names and site numbers stay in the project file.
City of David, Jerusalem. A monitor on the machine during open-cut utilities beside a recorded scatter.
The Ophel, Jerusalem. Open-area recording ahead of a drainage outfall through a historic scatter.
Mount of Olives slope, Jerusalem. 2,410 lots from mixed field seasons brought to one numbering system.
Old City circuit, Jerusalem. Pedestrian survey and tests on a proposed access corridor around the walls.
Mount Zion, Jerusalem. Six weeks of excavation teaching that still produced a usable archive.
Silwan / Pool of Siloam, Jerusalem. First aid for waterlogged timber lifted from a wet context.
You do not need a full brief on day one. We will say if the ground does not need a trench.
Site or district, what is already known, the proposed disturbance, and a deadline. A map or photo helps. Protected-site coordinates stay off a first public message.
We read the license file and historic maps before anyone puts a shovel in. If a trench would not answer the question, we say so in writing.
Methods, days, and deliverables go in a written scope. Fieldwork is recorded so another crew can continue the work — context, photograph, and catalog in one file.
That is enough to start. The Jerusalem desk replies by email. Crew filings use a unique ID, not this form.