A Guide to ’98 Digs: The Volunteer's View
Volunteers’ Views
040
Exploring Biblical Roots
On site at Bethsaida the sun rose over a landscape that had not changed for 5,000 years. People saw the same sun rise here in 2800 B.C. while they worshiped their “strange gods”; here the plundering soldiers of Joshua came and claimed the village as theirs; from here the king of the Jebusites sent his daughter as a bride to King David; to here their son Absalom fled after he killed his half-brother; here, in the eighth century B.C., the Assyrian army swept through, raping and looting; to here Israelites returned after the Babylonian Exile; here tetrarch Philip Herod (son of Herod the Great) made this village a city during the time of Jesus; here Josephus led the fight against the Romans in 67 A.D.; and, finally, here I brought a group of volunteers, some recruited from my New Testament class at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana, for a chance to be a part of history and to explore the roots of Christianity.
At first my group timorously scraped the ground with trowels. As confidence grew, people began digging with pickaxes. We found pig bones and realized that whoever lived here didn’t keep kosher. We found a grinding stone, a hook for holding down fishnets, an instrument for gathering grapes, a coin and part of a spindle. We uncovered an oven and a small purple object that turned out to be a coin from the fourth century B.C. We found anchors for boats, an instrument for putting oil on athletes, a golden earring, a complete Iron Age pot and lots of wine jugs from Rhodes. We ate popsicles a mile and a half from the Sea of Galilee (which was much nearer during the time of Jesus). With all the hard work and the many finds our three weeks flew by.
043
Meeting Other Volunteers
I relaxed the minute I met the other people at the dig. I was assigned to a team composed mostly of American students directed to excavate the area of the village closest to the synagogue. (I had even studied it in one of my classes.) We almost fully uncovered the courtyard of one dwelling.
All the volunteers were taught how excavations should be conducted and told the importance of the finds. I learned how to record data, such as pottery finds, and helped wash and sort the pottery. I really learned the vocabulary of archaeologists.
I met people from the United States, Israel, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany and Switzerland; wherever I travel I will never have to stay in a hotel again. The volunteers and staff ranged in age from 17 to over 70 and had very different backgrounds and goals. Some came to gain experience related to their education and career; others came just to have fun. They had it!
I plan to continue to research life at Ein Gedi and other small agricultural settlements in Judea.Thank you, BAR, for the scholarship that helped me have the most amazing experience of my life.
045
A Day on the Dig
The predawn silence is broken by knocking on our dormitory doors. “Boker tov, good morning, put your feet on the floor, it’s morning in Caesarea, boker tov.”
It is 4:45 a.m. I have 35 minutes before shuttle service to the field begins. I make sure that I have a full canteen, my trowel, pick, tape measure and sunscreen. The rest of the equipment—guffas (rubber buckets for hauling dirt), hoes, sifters, pottery buckets, brushes and pickaxes—are kept at the site.
My team works in Caesarea Vault, trench 1 (CV-01). There we are excavating around several large Herodian period storage vaults (horreum), trying to locate the ancient sea wall that probably stood in front of them. For the last several days we have been excavating Locus 043. (A locus is any three-dimensional feature, whether a soil layer, a wall or whatever.) By second breakfast (8:30 a.m.) we have filled many buckets with late Byzantine (491–640 A.D.) sherds. After breakfast our trowels hit paving stones, part of an ancient road. Coins found under the stones date to the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justin II (565–578 A.D.), so we know the road must have been made about that time or later. The road becomes our new locus.
We work until noon. Back at the dormitories we have about three hours to eat lunch, write letters, do laundry, swim, nap or hang out. At 4 p.m. half of us wash pottery and clean bones. Pottery washing is vital to date the various sherds from each trench and locus. We dine at 7 p.m. and attend lectures between 8 and 10 p.m. Then I go to bed, knowing “boker tov” will be here before I know it.
047
Making a Find
Many people must have heard my excited cries. If they were standing atop the sun-crisped tell, or excavation mound, they would have seen my square supervisor rush over. Approaching Square W41-42, they would have seen me pointing excitedly to a small triangular hole. Lying in its center was a bead. To a non-archaeologist the discovery of a little old bead may not sound like a big deal, but it is.
I had been talked into spending the summer at Megiddo by my father, a codirector of the expedition. I had been assigned to Area H, the Assyrian palace. While cleaning out my square with a wire brush (a broom head with wire bristles used for heavy sweeping) I reached a tiny little triangle of stones in a corner, from which it was difficult to remove dirt because of its small dimensions. I squatted down and slowly swept the crevice out. When I looked down into the hole to figure out if I had gotten everything, I saw something that appeared to be a piece of spray-painted Styrofoam, very shiny and artificial-looking. That is when I started to squeal.
The little bead I found dated back to the seventh or eighth century B.C. That bead, which has outlasted so many people and civilizations, made me wonder how important I am, or modern society is. It is a tangible link to a life hard to imagine.
Exploring Biblical Roots
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