More Digs in ’79
Volunteer Opportunities at Tell el-Hesi and Tell Yoqne’am
Two important excavations with volunteer opportunities were omitted from the listings in our March/April issue.
The Tell el-Hesi Archaeological Expedition, patriarch of digs, will be in the field for its sixth season, June 14 to July 31, 1979. Tell el-Hesi is one of the most famous sites in the history of archaeological method; in 1890, Sir Flinders Petrie, the first scholar to recognize the dating possibilities of ceramic typologies, led the first modern stratigraphic excavation at Tell el-Hesi. The site is located where the Negev desert gives way to the gently sloping, verdant Shephelah, midway between the Mediterranean port of Ashdod and Beer-sheva. Hesi is a 37 acre tell with a fortified acropolis on which a yet unknown number of walled cities were built from the third millennium to the final destruction in Hellenistic times (third to first centuries B.C.).
The current excavators have nicknamed Tell el-Hesi the “mound of many surprises.” This summer they will continue to probe the strata of the late Israelite period. Tell el-Hesi uses a volunteer staff of 85 people, from all parts of the world and of all ages, including retired people with zest and stamina for archaeology. Volunteers are required to participate in the extensive educational program of lectures and tours; academic credit is offered. For further information write to: Dr. Harry Thomas Frank; Hesi/The Volunteer Program; Oberlin College; Oberlin, Ohio 44074.
Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology plans to dig again this summer at Tell Yoqnem. Now in its third year, the Tell Yoqnem dig, directed by Professor Amnon Ben-Tor, is part of a regional study of the history of the Jezreel Valley. The 2-week sessions this summer (July 3–July 17 and July 18–August 1)—each employing about 100 volunteers—will concentrate on the Late Bronze Age remains at Yoqne’am and explore Qashish, an adjacent daughter site. The focus of these excavations will be settlement patterns, the beginnings of agriculture, and the problem of the settlement of the Israelite tribes. For additional information on Yoqnem write to: Mrs. Aviva Rosen, Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.