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!