Two Weeks of Digging

Here's a photo from Wednesday, July 16. We are just at the end of our dig day with lunch and pottery washing to follow. Actually with a shower and a long nap to follow the washing, too.
I had one of our dig partners take this photo so we could share it with the on-line readers of Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR). Why? Because we were the blessed recipients of a dig scholarship from BAR's parent organization, the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS). They covered 1/3 of the cost of volunteering at Tel es-Safi.


It has been an amazing time. We have learned so very much by actually being on the site and participating in the process. Sometimes as we scrape away, or brush up the last dust in our work area, an advanced class will be taking place and Vonnie or I will be able to listen in to the technical discussions. And in the evenings, we have lectures on archaeology. Last night we listened to the doyenne (the grand lady) of Philistine archaeology. 89 year old Trude Dothan (pronounced truduh dotawn) shared what she had learned at Tell Miqne/Ekron years ago, a site actually on the property of Kibbutz Revadim.

We are feeling much more "in shape" this second week, but perhaps taking a few extra naps is part of the cause. Or perhaps we really are adapting physically.

During the last two days I have found two mysteries (that piece of decorated pottery in the first photo is one of them.) and worked on solving the puzzle. (Archaeology is FULL of mysteries.) While digging down in two different places, I have discovered pottery that "shouldn't" be there. Late Bronze Age pottery should not appear in Early Bronze Age levels! So, I've been digging and cleaning to help the professionals look for a garbage pit and a foundation trench, dug during the Late Bronze Age period, that would have allowed LB pottery to reach EB levels.

Vonnie has been working on an alley (three feet wide) and sifting her diggings looking for whatever people threw out onto the "street". Sometimes she finds nothing. Other times she finds tiny fragments of flint, shell, bone, and of course pottery.

Today, in a locus (a small dig area) that I had previously lowered, our German volunteer discovered several pieces of pottery that had broken and been buried together. They even got the official photographer to capture it. Finds are really the luck of the draw!

Tomorrow we return to Jerusalem. Vonnie asked me to let you see the inside of Hotel Hashemi so you could imagine us upstairs above the Suq Khan al-Zeit (the narrow market place that follows the ancient central street of Roman times, the Cardo.) The photo was created using Autostitch demo and has some distortion, but it sure captures the drama.

Now I must run find Vonnie for tonight's dinner!