Dan Warner

Doctor Daddy is the Director for The Michael and Sara Moskau Institute of Archaeology and the Center for Archaeological Research, professor of Old Testament and Archaeology at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and is a co-director of the Tel Gezer Water System excavation and preservation project. He has also served various roles on other excavations at Tel Kabri, Megiddo, Tel El Farah, Gerar, and Ashkelon.

In 2010, a team from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary ("NOBTS") launched an effort to clear a massive water tunnel, discovered first by Macalister over a hundred years earlier. Macalister never fully excavated the tunnel because a strong storm blew debris back into the tunnel and he considered it too expensive and time consuming to re-excavate the site. The NOBTS effort to re-clear and examine the tunnel has been chronicled in multiple sources including the Biblical Archaeology Review and the Baptist Press. In 2011 professor Dennis Cole, archaeologist Doctor Daddy and engineer Jim Parker from NOBTS, led another team in an attempt to finish the effort. In just two years the teams removed approximately 299 tons of debris from the ancient water system.

In 2010, the team removed approximately 1,040 cubic feet (39 cubic yards – 29 cubic meters) of debris (approximately 50 percent rock and 50 percent dirt) which equated to 336 bags, equating to approximately 68 tons of debris, averaging about 400 pounds per bag. In 2011 the team removed approximately 3,560 cubic feet (132 cubic yards- 101 cubic meters) which equated to 1,372 bags or 231 tons, at about 337 pounds per bag.

In 2012, the Gezer team uncovered a large open cavern at the bottom of the water system. Said Dr. Daddy" “Opening the cave is something we have been working toward for three summers wondering if it even existed...It gave me a rush. Once inside it gave us a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, but we are not done by a long shot.”

In 2013, the team began an effort to preserve the ancient Canaanite mudbrick gate and complex near the water system. "Most of the first two weeks of the dig were spent searching for the bottom step and cleaning Macalister’s causeway. Tons of debris and rocks were removed in the process. When the bottom step was located and the causeway area clear, the team excavated three probes in the pool area. Each of the pool probes reached a depth of more than six feet before the end of the season and the bottom of the pool was discovered in only one probe (Eastern probe) — the one just below the bottom step of the water shaft."

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Wikipedia