Excavating and Teaching

Welcome back! Sorry it took so long for an update, but the last several weeks have been extremely busy. We've had a lot of school work thrown on us which has caused a lot of stress, and that has taken its toll on many of us. However I think I can safely say that the worst has passed and most everyone is feeling better about things.

I believe since my last post I have a few new things to mention. I've unofficially and informally joined an excavation at the site of Tel Aphek/Antipatris. The site is located just outside the town of Rosh Ha'ayin, at the headwaters of the Yarkon River. The site has habitation layers from the Bronze Age (~1500 BCE) all the way to the Ottoman Period. The excavations run by Tel Aviv University are in an area of a Canaanite Palace dating to the Bronze Age. Most of the site has been excavated before, so we are finding a lot of fill material, such as barbed wire, modern glass, plastic, and chewed gum.

I have been to the site twice now, last Friday and this Friday (today). I have been working with several others in one square, trying to make the floor level before lowering it down to the elevation of the Canaanite Palace. The Bronze Age level is more than a meter beneath the current level, and the work will not be completed after only one season. Right now we are digging through part of the Roman level, and are finding some typical Roman pottery (in addition to the modern fill material). Today part of my job was filling sandbags to line the bulks and edges of the excavation squares. 'Sandbags' is a misnomer, since the bags are actually filled with the dirt that we excavate from the square. The boss was happily surprised by my technique and complimented the look and professionalism of the sandbags I made, He put me in charge of the sandbag job, which surprised me since I have never done that kind of work before.

One aspect of the Aphek excavations is the inclusion of children and non-academics in the excavation process. Each week a large part of the team consists of normal people that have chosen to wake up really early and participate in the dig. Children from a local school are also brought to the site to help out and learn more about archaeology. Part of our job as the 'expert excavators' is to teach the others about the archaeological process, the techniques, methods and terminology, as well as the reasons behind those methods and the excavations themselves. The children, while not able to do the heavy digging or more delicate work, can also participate by moving loose stones or washing the potter that has already been found. They really enjoy it because they feel like they are helping the professionals (us) with our work, which they are! It also exposes them to a part of the history that they may never experience, or only experience to a limited extent. Plus it's a chance for them to practice English (and for me to practice Hebrew)!

The winter rainy season has come, which limits the time excavations can be held. This means that there may be only one more day of excavations before the squares are closed for the winter. The decision hasn't been made yet, but even if I've excavated my last day at Aphek I have learned quite a bit and am glad I went. I have signed up for another dig in January down in the Negev, but the details for that have not been released yet.

I hope all my American followers have a relaxing and stomach-bursting Thanksgiving. Hanukkah is coming up soon, so my next post will probably cover that festive time!

Attached here is the link to all of my photos, for those that don't look at or don't have Facebook. It includes all the photos I've taken while I've been here in Israel, including some of the less spectacular ones that I choose to omit from publishing on Facebook. The link will work no matter how many photos I add, so saving this link will always show you the most up to date files.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rzg8dgcag9yjjx7/AADeP0ft-J6r_xxApFqm7p1xa?dl=0

1 Month In, 2 Weeks of Rain

Hey everyone! The program is now around one month old, and things are starting to go at a regular pace. This post is somewhat light on content and events, so if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments and I will be more than willing to answer!

The few weeks since my last post have been mostly uneventful. I go to classes Mon-Thur, I read various articles about various aspects of archaeology in the Southern Levant, I eat, I sleep, I do laundry, I try to avoid the rain. Yeah, we've had a lot of rain recently. I haven't been keeping track, but I'm pretty sure it has rained for at least an hour at some point every day for the last two weeks. And not just a light drizzle, either. They have been storms, complete with thunder and lightning. This is great for the country as a whole, but a real bummer for us who like to do things outside.

Identifying sherds

This past Friday we were supposed to go on our first field trip to the sites of Gezer and Aphek, but we had to cancel on account of thunderstorms. Instead we had an impromptu lesson on pottery in the Bronze and Iron Ages. You can see some of the pictures from the lesson I posted on Facebook. I was definitely disappointed that we didn't get to go to the sites, since they were two sites that I had never been to before. However, the day wasn't a loss as the typology lesson was very educational. Some parts of it were review, like how to identify and label different parts of a vessel (neck, base, rim, etc.), but seeing actual examples of the pottery we were discussing in our classes was very useful.

Philistine wine krater

'Bilbil' jug

The classes themselves have been interesting as a whole, with some more educational than others. Since the professors teach classes for our program as well as courses in Hebrew for Israeli students (and sometimes courses for other departments), juggling classes sometimes leads to overlap. This means sometimes we won't have one of the classes one week, and may have a different class more times than is scheduled. As long as we are learning, I have no complaints.

Starting this week we will begin our discussion of the Iron Age, and the time periods discussed in the Bible. It is going to be very interesting to see what people think about the different interpretations and outlooks towards archaeology and the Bible, and to see how professional archaeologists tackle the issue as well.

We have received our first written assignments, so the next couple weeks will be mostly devoted to doing research and writing for those. I hope everyone has an enjoyable and productive week. Feel free to ask questions, and stay out of the rain!