“The best age for diggers is about 15 to 20 years. After that many turn stupid, and only a small proportion are worth having between 20 and 40. After 40 very few are of any use,” advised Sir William Flinders Petrie in 1904.1 Fifteen years earlier, Petriea had ushered in the era of scientific archaeological excavation at Tell el-Hesi, 15 miles northeast of Gaza in modern Israel.2 Petrie’s experiences in the field led him to offer his fellow archaeologists hints on what to look for in laborers:
“The best workers are the scraggly under-sized youths, with wizened wiry faces. … Beside the mere physical strength of the fellow, the face has to be studied for the character. The only safe guide in selecting workers is the expression. …The qualities to be considered are, first, the honesty, shown mostly by the eyes, and by a frank and open bearing; next, the sense and ability; and lastly the sturdiness, and freedom from nervous weakness and hysterical tendency to squabble.”3
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Fortunately, the volunteer who wishes to participate in an excavation today does not have to undergo such an examination. Since Petrie’s day, archaeology has grown from a treasure hunt into a science using the most exacting methods of excavation and analysis, and the participation of supervised volunteers in excavations has played a major role in this development.
Petrie’s dig at Tell el-Hesi, like all excavations of the time, did not involve volunteers. Workers, wizened and wiry enough to pass Petrie’s scrutiny, were paid for their labor. Petrie records that he found the most efficient method of payment to be by the number of objects discovered. That way, people could be left unsupervised for two or three days, merely reporting each evening how far they had dug.4 The lack of detailed records in Petrie’s reports is the natural result of this method of operation. His greatest concern was to keep his laborers at work. In the official publication of the Tell el-Hesi excavations, Petrie criticized the local inhabitants and their leaders for laziness:
“It would have been a treat to have made them do a hard honest day’s work; for nothing is more annoying than a pack of ne’er-do-well, quarrelsome, loungers insisting on hanging about.”5
Employing local laborers in great numbers from nearby villages, the early archaeologists often acted more like foremen on construction sites or assembly lines than field archaeologists. Petrie proudly recorded his spying method in his excavation manual:
“A telescope is very useful to watch if distant work is regular. At Tanis [in northern Egypt] the girls in a big pit were kept by the men walking up and tipping baskets at the top; but the telescope showed that the baskets were all the time empty. The immediate dismissal of fourteen people was the result.”6
The pitfalls of using untrained local laborers to excavate sites became more apparent as dig methodology became more scientific. In 1926, when William Frederic Badè of the Pacific School of Religion excavated the eight-acre site of Tell en-Nasbeh, near Jerusalem, he brought to the site a great emphasis on detail. Using the Reisner-Fisher method, Badè divided the tell into 10-meter (10.9-yard) square sections and then excavated in strips.7 After reaching bedrock in each strip, with all finds exactly recorded according to findspot, the excavated segment was filled in, becoming the dump for the next section. Badè recognized that this method could not be left to unsupervised workmen whose understanding of excavation methodology consisted largely of earth-moving and hunting for artifacts. One of Badè’s primary concerns at Tell en-Nasbeh became the training of future archaeologists.
Badè began an archaeology program for students at the Pacific School of Religion that included instruction in pottery typology, excavation methodology and 069recording procedures. Students who completed their studies and demonstrated a high level of interest in archaeology were offered positions on the excavation staff at Tell en-Nasbeh. They volunteered their services to the expedition and paid their own traveling expenses, both to and from Palestine. While at the excavation, the students were guests of the expedition and were sometimes given small stipends for personal expenses.8
The problems and failures of many of the early excavations can be attributed to the lack of trained staff members. During the years 1920 to 1929, when William Foxwell Albright served as the director of the Jerusalem school of the American Schools of Oriental Research, which now bears his name, he established a training program for students. Albright began excavating Tell Beit Mirsim, 16 miles northeast of Beer-Sheva, an excavation that would prove to be pivotal for the development and refinement of ceramic typology. Albright began a weekly program of local field trips and also led students on excursions to areas such as the Dead Sea and the eastern Galilee to visit archaeological sites and to collect pottery.9 Albright observed that having to defend his pottery chronology and his analysis of site stratification during instruction of students repeatedly required that he reconsider ideas, a process that produced a more accurate excavation analysis.10
Between the two World Wars archaeology began to emerge as a scholarly discipline. Albright and the students he trained began to refine excavation techniques first developed by Reisner and Fisher and, building on Petrie’s work, formulated a more precise system of pottery typology.
The next great advance in archaeology came with the work of Dame Kathleen Kenyon at Jericho from 1952 to 1958.11 Refining techniques she had learned under Sir Mortimer Wheeler in England, Kenyon concentrated her excavation largely in 5- by 5-meter (4.6- by 4.6-yard) squares within a grid system, leaving unexcavated catwalks known as balks between squares to preserve the stratigraphy.12 With her advances in archaeological techniques came a new attitude toward workers. Kenyon wrote:
“The personal qualities expected of a volunteer on a dig are that he, or she, … should be reasonably active and strong, not afraid of hard work, prepared to assist in everything from plodding through apparently uninteresting levels to washing and marking finds (though most directors are kind enough not to give a volunteer dull jobs for too long) and above all he or she must not be afraid of getting dirty.”13
Kenyon’s methods influenced Americans then in the field at the Biblical city of Shechem under the direction of one of Albright’s former students, G. Ernest Wright.14 Wright combined the techniques of Kenyon with the team approach used at the Israeli dig at Hazor, directed by Yigael Yadin.15 The days of a 070single archaeologist supervising an entire site were over. Supervisory staff members now shared responsibility for digging the site and for publishing the results in their areas. With the trained staff members and assistants, the major problem of past excavations was overcome. This approach proved so successful that teamwork is the rule on almost all excavations in the Near East today.
The greatest impetus for volunteer involvement in archaeology originated in Israel with Yigael Yadin. In 1961, Yadin invited students from the United States, Canada, Norway and Germany to join his expedition to the Nahal H|ever cave in the Judean wilderness. This marked the first time that foreign volunteers with no background in archaeology were asked to participate on a dig.16 Preparing to excavate Herod the Great’s palace-fortress on the remote summit of Masada, overlooking the Dead Sea,b Yadin placed a brief announcement in local Israeli papers and in the London Observer in 1963. Thousands of replies came to him from students and others all over the world, ready to join the excavation of the site of the famed Roman siege immortalized by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. The announcement clearly stated the conditions of acceptance to the expedition: All volunteers were to pay their own travel expenses both to and from Israel and were required to stay on the dig for a minimum of two weeks. The harsh living conditions, advertised as tents with ten beds, accompanied by spartan camp food, did not dampen the spirit of volunteers. This system enabled Yadin to operate 23 two-week shifts averaging 300 participants each.17 During the excavation, the archaeological staff gave lectures and offered thorough five-hour tours each Sabbath. Yadin acknowledged his debt to his volunteers by dedicating his book on Masada to them and writing that only because of them had the expedition succeeded.18
With the ever-increasing costs of paid laborers, volunteers, at first an option, became a necessity. The excavation of Gezer, an important Biblical city that included a major Solomonic gateway and an imposing cultic high place, was initiated by G. Ernest Wright and later directed by William G. Dever and H. Darrell Lance. The Gezer project was deliberately planned as the first summer field school for volunteers, who constituted the entire labor force.19 The volunteers received firsthand experience in archaeological excavation techniques, attended daily lectures and field trips and, in exchange for their labor, could receive academic credit.20 This “Gezer Field School” model set the standard for the majority of excavations in the Middle East today.
My own experiences at Gamlac demonstrate what can happen to a volunteer. On my first excavation, I, like the other volunteers, was very eager to learn. We 071constantly asked our supervisors why we should dig here and not over there. The explanations and training that we received taught us a great deal about the science of archaeology, and we all quickly became more effective diggers.
With this knowledge and experience, I eventually became a square supervisor. On my first day, hordes of eager new volunteers eagerly showed me every stone or potsherd they had just picked off the ground. After convincing them that their broken stone or potsherd, though interesting, would not change the course of history, I attempted to regain control and get the disappointed mob back to work. I then realized what a constant irritation I must have been to my supervisors during my early days. But I also concluded that my continual questioning had made my work as supervisor much more effective.
William G. Dever had a similar reaction to the participation of volunteers:
“The irreverent, persistent questions of bright young people with no commitment to our field, most of them secularists, forced our senior staff—all trained as Biblical scholars—to rethink their own motives and methods. We now had to defend ourselves as archaeologists, or not at all. Little did we realize when we first took on the training of the students in the field that our own conception of what we were doing would change so radically.”21
By virtually eliminating the need for a paid work force, volunteers have also played a major role in funding excavations. Moreover, volunteers on most digs pay for their room and board during the excavation season. This allows the majority of funding to be used for the excavation itself, making it possible to stay in the field longer and to use more sophisticated (and expensive) equipment and tests.
The participation of volunteers in archaeology ensures a future supply of skilled workers and archaeologists, trained at the field schools, and increases public appreciation of the field. During my four years in the field, I have worked with or supervised volunteers ranging from university students to plumbers, social workers, opera singers, housewives and doctors. All have told me how archaeology has enriched their lives.
Finally, archaeology has a tremendous amount of information to offer Bible studies in particular. Archaeologists who are uncovering remains that shed light on the Biblical world may be unaware of some of the applications of their discoveries. Allowing numerous students in Bible studies, such as myself, to participate in excavations helps to equip them better for this task of interpretation. When these students become scholars and teachers, they will be prepared to increase the public’s knowledge of the world of the Bible, thereby fulfilling the primary role of archaeology: uncovering and communicating the knowledge of past civilizations to today’s generation as well as to future generations.
“The best age for diggers is about 15 to 20 years. After that many turn stupid, and only a small proportion are worth having between 20 and 40. After 40 very few are of any use,” advised Sir William Flinders Petrie in 1904.1 Fifteen years earlier, Petriea had ushered in the era of scientific archaeological excavation at Tell el-Hesi, 15 miles northeast of Gaza in modern Israel.2 Petrie’s experiences in the field led him to offer his fellow archaeologists hints on what to look for in laborers: “The best workers are the scraggly under-sized youths, with wizened wiry faces. […]
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William Flinders Petrie, Methods and Aims in Archaeology (London: Macmillan, 1904), p. 21.
2.
Petrie, Seventy Years in Archaeology (London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1931), pp. 114–116.
3.
Petrie, Methods and Aims, pp. 20–21.
4.
Petrie, Methods and Aims, p. 29.
5.
Petrie, Tell el Hesy (Lachish) (London: Alexandria P. Watt, 1891), p. 11.
6.
Petrie, Methods and Aims, p. 28.
7.
The method is named after George A. Reisner, who began his archaeological career in Egypt in 1897, and C. S. Fisher, with whom Reisner further refined his methods at Samaria from 1908–1911. See Robert M. Little, “George Andrew Reisner and His Contemporaries,” in The Archaeology of Jordan and Other Studies, ed. Lawrence T. Geraty and Larry G. Herr (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews Univ. Press, 1986), pp. 183–204; Philip J. King, American Archaeology in the Mideast: A History of the American Schools of Oriental Research (Philadelphia: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1983), pp. 39–41, 75–82. For a description of the method as first practiced, see William F. Badè, A Manual of Excavation in the Near East: Methods of Digging and Recording of the Tell en-Nasbeh Expedition in Palestine (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1934).
8.
Badè, Manual of Excavation, pp. 12, 52–53.
9.
William F. Albright, “Some Archaeological and Topographical Results of a Trip Through Palestine,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (BASOR) 11 (Oct. 1923), pp. 3–14; Albright, “Report of the Director of the School in Jerusalem 1922–23,” BASOR 12 (Dec. 1923), pp. 13–15.
10.
Albright, “The Excavations of Tell Beit Mirsim,” Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 17 (1936–1937), pp. 10–11.
11.
Kathleen M. Kenyon et al, Excavations at Jericho, 5 vols. (London: British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, 1960–1983). For a popular account, see Kenyon’s Digging Up Jericho: The Results of the Jericho Excavations 1952–1956 (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1961).
12.
A detailed description of the Wheeler-Kenyon method may be found in her book Beginning in Archaeology, rev. ed. (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1961).
13.
Kenyon, Beginning in Archaeology, p. 65.
14.
Philip J. King, “The Influence of G. Ernest Wright on the Archaeology of Palestine,” in Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation, ed. Leo G. Perdue, Lawrence E. Toombs and Gary L. Johnson (Atlanta: John Knox, 1987), pp. 19–20.
15.
King, “Influence of G. Ernest Wright,” p. 20.
16.
Neil Asher Silberman, A Prophet from Amongst You—The Life of Yigael Yadin: Soldier, Scholar, and Mythmaker of Modern Israel (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1993), p. 265.
17.
Yigael Yadin, Masada: Herod’s Fortress and the Zealot’s Last Stand (New York: Random House, 1966), pp. 13–14.
18.
Yadin, Masada, p. 261.
19.
William G. Dever et al., Gezer II: Report of the 1967–70 Seasons in Fields I and II, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Hebrew Union College, 1974), p. 1; Dever, Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Biblical Research (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1990), pp. 27–28.
20.
William G. Dever, H. Darrell Lance, G. Ernest Wright, Gezer I: Preliminary Report of the 1964–66 Seasons, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Hebrew Union College, 1970), pp. 7–9.
21.
Dever, Recent Archaeological Discoveries, pp. 27–28.
