A friend recently sent me a picture of a major construction site going up in Hamra.

It’s probably the biggest tower going up in the area, just a block from the main commericial street:

There are a couple of indents in the bottom:

From a closer view, they do not seem to be dug precisely with heavy excavation equipment and seem rough around the edges:

Could it have been a previous structure or wall? Or is this just part of the building’s foundation?
Perhaps some foundation experts out there can weigh in.
At first I thought the site was too deep for ruins to be found, but during a recent trip to an archeology site in Sidon I saw this map, which indicates ancient structures could be found as low as 19 meters below street level:
Also, I recently noticed something in Sodeco:
It looks to be a municipal excavation for ducting work. And I noticed this at the bottom:

Here’s a closer look:

It could be old or relatively new, but it’s also interesting to see the multiple layers of pavement and how the surface level may have grown over the years. 

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  1. Hello Habib,
    The pictures are really unclear. And the resolution quite low. So hard to see through and establish a sure conclusion or to diagnose in an accurate way.
    Site 1 Hamra:
    The layout as it is doesn’t really seem to have stone construction or something showing a build up. This looks more like and excavation for the foundations and different levels. The lowest level might be the pit for the sanitary reservoir.. The pattern is unusual for old constructions anyway.
    And although deep, I do not see the owners of this land bringing experts to dig out archeology heritage. Meaning that chances are they would have removed this deep layer the same way the excavated the upper layers. Using heavy machinery. So at that depth, almost sure this is for foundation/sanitary pit.

    Picture 2: Sodeco:
    Same here. The contractor will not bring in a team of archeologist for that.
    It seems to be stones laid down for leveling. Meaning a contractor is owed to compact the layer of filling each 30cm. These stones are probably concrete stones. 3*10cm = 30cm. The level to compact, and the little pit is there as a witness to the consulting firm supervising the works, so they see the works have been done properly.
    I hope that was helpful.
    When taking such pics, take the walls because it shows strats. Easier to identify what is logic and what is not. For example, there will not be any archeology if the sides are all rocks. (pic of hamra project do not show the layers because they have the shoring (to retain the surrounding roads/constructions.
    Best,
    R.

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