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This post is a record of July 22, 2011, but was written later.

This weekend (remember that weekend means Friday and Saturday for us) was unlike all of the previous weekends because we didn’t tour anywhere. During this “free weekend,” we could do whatever we wanted. Most of us took advantage of that right away on Friday by sleeping in. Granted, for us, waking up at something like 8:00 means about four extra hours of sleep.

A group of people took a bus to Tiberias, the nearest city of substantial size, mostly so they could see what was there for shopping. Others, including myself, decided to stay back at the kibbutz. I did that partly because I had other things I wanted to do, partly because I didn’t need to do more shopping, and partly because I had heard Dr. Schuler say enough times that there was no reason he would ever go to Tiberias on purpose. It’s not the nicest city around.

Anna and I went swimming in the Sea of Galilee again. Since we went earlier in the day, the water was much calmer than it is in the evenings when the waves are picking up. Unfortunately, I think the stiller water might have made some of the pollution more noticeable. Dr. Schuler had warned us that because the water level is so low right now, the pollution level is higher than normal. Is it strange for you to think about the sea that Jesus walked upon being polluted?

Anna and I also spent quite a bit of time labeling and uploading photos. Click here to see all of the photos that we have finished so far, organized by day. (These are the photos I link to at the bottom of every blog post.)

I don’t remember what else I did on our free day, but that’s probably why it was so relaxing. If nothing else, I gave my muscles (and sweat glands) a break.

Since I didn’t take any new photos on day 22, I’ll just link again to all of the photos we have online so far.

SEE ALL 885 PHOTOS FROM DAYS 1-21 WITH TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS HERE.

This post is a record of July 21, 2011, but was written later.

The only thing left to do to finish square F10 was to remove the remaining balk, so that was our goal on day 21. I apologize for the dark spot in this before photo. I asked Darryl to take it for me, and he left his hand in front of the flash. I think you can still see the remaining balk.

F10 before

The problem was that one of us stood on this balk as a platform to help lift buckets of dirt out of the square. As the day went on, that little lifting perch kept getting smaller and smaller.

me standing on a shrinking balk

David ended up being the bucket lifter when the balk reached its smallest. As we picked away at his perch, he was soon standing on a flat surface no bigger than his two feet, with his arms on the tops of the walls to support himself. That’s when we realized we held David’s fate in our hands. It was also at that time that our square supervisors, Darryl and John, left us by ourselves… (Click the photo for a larger version.)

David narrowly escapes Kyle's pick

Day 21 wasn’t quite as brutal as day 20, but it still wasn’t easy. Still, at the end of the day, this is what our square looked like.

F10 after

We might not have had too many incredible finds from this room (save the rock with the inscription Meghan and Rick found very early on), but it is still satisfying to know that we excavated this entire room by hand. When you look at this photo, can you imagine how many buckets we must have filled and hauled out to remove that volume of dirt? So, in one sense, we did have some big finds: four walls and a floor! We also had the rare intact lintel stone, the bench, and the stylobate, which I wrote about in earlier posts. We also had a window wall, which I’ll post pictures of in a future post.

I can know say that I helped finish a room with Glenn and did a large portion of the work on this room with John’s team. Two down. Can we make it three?

SEE ALL 8 PHOTOS FROM DAY 21 WITH TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS HERE.

This post is a record of July 20, 2011, but was written later.

I think these before and after photos are misleading because I don’t think they do a good job of showing how much we got accomplished on day 20, but here they are.

F10 before

F10 after

The photos make it look easy, but removing that much of the balk really did take the entire day. And it was hard work. I think I sweat more on day 20 than I had on any day yet, and that’s saying quite a bit! My shirt was an entirely different color, my face was dripping, and it just kept coming. And remember, we’re even in the shade most of the time. Because David has become notorious for sweating a lot every day, I’m trying to coin the phrase “sweating like a David.” I was definitely sweating like a David on day 20.

It’s hard work with the pick, with the turiyah (hoe), lifting rocks, lifting buckets full of dirt, and running the wheelbarrow. We switch positions, usually every half hour on the water breaks, so that a person doesn’t get too tired of doing any one thing. (Instead, we get to get tired of doing everything…) Wheelbarrow duty is a lot of people’s least favorite job, but it’s actually the one I like most. I like it because you get to move around a lot more, you get to make a dumping ramp that keeps getting bigger with all the dirt that’s being removed, and you get to use a different set of muscles. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll even get more of a breeze than the people under the tarp in what it lovingly referred to as “the pit.”

I also like working with the pick axe a lot because you get to pop and pry big rocks out of the ground. (John, if you’re reading this, go ahead and skip to the next paragraph.) John, the square supervisor that I’ve worked under the most, doesn’t like it all that much when we pop rocks before they’ve been “articulated around,” so sometimes we have to wait until he’s not looking if we find a really big rock that probably shouldn’t be removed yet but is just calling our name and feels SO satisfying to pry out or rock back and forth with the pick until it can be pulled out by hand. (John, if you’re still reading, you know the saying. It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Also, just remember that we never destroyed anything priceless by doing this… that you know of.)

My least favorite job is probably working with the turiyah, because it forces you to be bent over so much. I think it’s most painful for the taller diggers, a group that I’m a part of. Unfortunately for us, this is the bulk of the work most of the time.

worm snake

I mentioned in one of the other posts a little bit about the critters at the dig site. Another one that we run into is the worm snake. As the name suggests, these are tiny snakes that look like earthworms, but slither like snakes. I’m not positive, but I believe this is the Wikipedia article about the kind we encounter. For the record, we also find quite a few beetles and have been bothered a lot lately by bees. Every once in a while we’ll see a lizard/gecko or mouse. Once, I saw a kangaroo mouse, which we could identify by its very long tail and the way it jumped all around the square.

Prayer request: As I write this on July 26, we have even more people under the weather. Yesterday, when Anna stayed back, so did Darryl and Dylan because both of them were also not feeling well. Today, Anna and Darryl were back, but Dylan still wasn’t feeling up to digging. Also today, Dina get her hand smashed by a rock and Glenn’s arm started swelling and reacting quite a bit to a bee sting he had received the day before. Dina, Glenn, and some others went to a clinic in Tiberias, where they got some medications, Glenn got a shot, and Dina was told that nothing in her hand is broken. Please pray for all of these team members, that they might recover and be able to enjoy the last couple days at the dig and in Israel.

SEE ALL 3 PHOTOS FROM DAY 20 WITH TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS HERE.

This post is a record of July 19, 2011, but was written later.

As far as I can remember, John’s team spent day 19 working on exposing as much of the floor as possible. As I wrote in the day 18 post, the floor isn’t the nicest. It’s made up of rocks that are not uniform and are uneven. Dr. Schuler says that this floor we’re finding was actually just the subfloor, and that there were have been plaster poured over this to make the floor itself.

While we use turiyahs (hoes) to scoop dirt into buckets for most of the excavation work, when we’re this close to the floor, we have to switch to hand trowels and eventually brushes. It might not feel like we’re doing as much work when we’re being a little more intricate like this, but as I said to John, this is when I feel like I’m really “doing archaeology.” I think we often think of archaeological work as being very cautious work with toothbrushes and so on, but most of what we’ve experienced has been more like digging pits, where intricacy and caution are traded for brute force and moving as much dirt as possible. So, it was a nice change of pace to get to take things a little easier and actually sit on the floor as we worked around rocks with hand tools.

If we’re not careful like this, we could end up removing pieces that shouldn’t be removed. It can be scary sometimes when you’re using the pick axe or turiyah and you end up loosening or removing a rock that you’re not sure what supposed to taken out. You feel like you might have just destroyed a piece of history. About 1,300 years of preservation and waiting to be excavated, and you wreck it in a single swipe. This hasn’t happened too often, but to be honest, I think it occurs a lot more than I thought it would. It can be a little nerve-racking at times.

Another thing that was only slightly nerve-racking for us can kind of be seen in the after photo here.

F10 before

F10 after

If you click on the after photo, you can better see the rectangular blocks in the floor, near the bottom of the photo. As we uncovered these, we noticed that they were flat, large, shaped, and arranged differently than the other rocks in the floor. We also noticed that dirt would fall into cracks between these rocks, giving the impression that there was a hollow space underneath them. When Dr. Schuler came over to inspect, he paused for a moment, then said that he would give us a clue as to what he thought the blocks might be. Even before he said that, I was wondering if it might be a tomb, so when he said he’d give us a clue, he then did exactly what I thought he would. He laid down on them and crossed his arms over his chest like a body in a tomb. He then said, however, that he would be skeptical of it being a tomb because the blocks weren’t quite wide enough to make a tomb cover.

We were told to be quiet about the possibility of it being a tomb for the following reason. If it was a tomb, and there was something that distinguished it as a Christian or Roman tomb, there would be no problem. But if it was thought to be a Jewish tomb or if there were no clues at all so that there was still the possibility of it being a Jewish tomb, there would be big problems. The excavation would have to hault, and Jewish authorities would probably do what they could to stop digging in the area. In fact, Jews have been known to even vandalize archaeological sites if there is the risk of Jewish bodies being interfered with in any way. As we were told this, my desire for it to be a tomb quickly turned into a hope that it either wasn’t or that it would be marked as Christian or Roman.

As Dr. Schuler looked at it a while longer, he called Darryl over, and Dr. Schuler, Darryl, and John discussed the possibility of it being a stylobate, which is what John and Darryl originally thought it was. A stylobate is a platform that columns are placed upon. At first Dr. Schuler has dismissed this idea since he saw no reason for there to be columns in this area, but as they discussed, he was suddenly struck with an “oh, duh” moment in which he decided that it must be a stylobate that supported columns that lined the sides of the main road through Hippos.

We decided that before making too many judgement calls, we would remove the remaining balk in the square to see what else was in there and on the floor.

SEE ALL 6 PHOTOS FROM DAY 19 WITH TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS HERE.

This post is a record of July 18, 2011, but was written later.

I forgot to take a before photo for day 18, but the after photo for day 17 is the same thing, so I’ll use that here.

F10 "before"

F10 after

F10 "before"

F10 after

As the photos show, we had begun to hit floor in some areas. Unfortunately, the floor appears to be pretty uneven like in the room east of it. Even so, it’s nice to know where the floor is so we know how much further we have left to dig.

In the evening, most of us went on another one of the tours organized by the Haiffa people. This time, we visited Umm el Kanatir, a touristic center in the Golan Heights, and Vulcanic Park.

crane over synagogue

Umm el Kanatir is an archaeological site in the Goal Heights centered on a very large, ancient synagogue. Besides the size and quality of the synagogue, another thing that makes this site unique is the computerized crane that has been used for excavation. It moves back and forth on railroad tracks on both sides of the synagogue and moves in the other direction along the top bar of the crane’s frame. As every large rock was removed from the synagogue during excavation, the crane, as I understand it, inserted a computer chip into every rock and recorded the exact location where the removed rock was placed. This way, pieces of the temple could be reconstructed, and every large rock is accounted for. I’d say it probably beats the cargo nets we use.

Kyle in underground room

While Michael was giving us a tour of the synagogue, he said something about a “secret passageway” in one area. Shortly after that, I looked over and saw Dylan about to climb through a hole in the floor. Someone had told him that it was okay for him to climb down there to look at the small room underneath. Since secret passageways are one of my favorite things in the world, I couldn’t pass up the chance to follow him down. It turned out to be a fairly small, very hot little room, so I didn’t spend too long down there. They’re not exactly sure yet what it would have been used for.

synogogue

Just a short walking distance from the synagogue was a spring that I thought Michael said was somehow related to Hippos. In fact, I believe he said that the area with that spring was actually considered to be a part of Hippos, on the outskirts. He made it sound like people in that area would have paid taxes to Hippos. I didn’t feel like we were that close, but I wasn’t really sure.

To see other photos of Umm el Kanatir, follow the link at the bottom of this post.

Golan Heights animated model

At the Golan Heights touristic center (sorry, I can’t remember the name of the place), we first watched a short video about the Golan Heights. The movie screens in front sort of wrapped around a little, and the theater was equipped with fans and mist sprinklers, so it was one of those “sensory” videos. Unfortunately, it was somewhat cheesy, and some in our group thought it was basically a piece of propaganda, since it portrayed everything about the Golan Heights in a very positive light, not mentioning anything about the shady political history of the area or its strategic military value. After the movie, we went into a room with a large model of the Golan Heights. The room lights dimmed and there was a narration as different areas of the model were lit to give a short history show. Since they produce a variety of alcoholic drinks in the Golan Heights, there was also a small brewery at this touristic center that we toured briefly.

entering bunker

To eat our supper, we bused to Vulcanic Park. There we explored an old military bunker, which included one of my other favorite things: tunnels. There was also a small sculture garden in the park, full of little robots and creatures some guy had made out of scrap metal, which seemed somewhat out of place to me, but was still entertaining. Our supper was similar to the other meals we’ve had on these tours – pita bread, hummus, meat and cheese, and of course, watermelon for dessert. Again, to see photos of Vulcanic Park and the bunker, click the link below.

This touring was good, but the last portion seemed quite a bit different than all of our previous touring, mostly because of the indoor movie, model, and brewery, that made me feel more like we were in a museum or something that out playing Indiana Jones as we explore the Holy Land, which is what we’ve felt like in the past. Whatever the case, it was an enjoyable evening.

SEE ALL 53 PHOTOS FROM DAY 18 WITH TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS HERE.

This post is a record of July 17, 2011, but was written later.

I continued work with John’s team on square F10. Unfortunately, since I’m writing this blog post a week after the fact, I don’t remember there being much that was noteworthy. Here are the usual before and after photos.

F10 before

F10 after

You can tell that we spent a good amount of our time bringing down the east side (the right side in these photos) of our “step.”

Although five of our volunteers were leaving on day 17, a few of them were dedicated/crazy enough to come up to the dig site and work one last time until being driven back down to the kibbutz when we stopped for breakfast. Christine got to work a little more on exposing the bench she found, and Matt got to be a part of finding a Corinthian capital in that east side of the “step” that we were removing. I thought I had taken a photo of the capital, but I guess I didn’t. I’ll upload one after I get a copy from someone. It had some pretty intricate designs and was fun to find among all the rocks and dirt. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as fun to remove. When rocks or things like this are too heavy for one or two people to lift, we use a cargo net and usually four to six people to lift it up and out of the square. We had to “net” the capital in this way. When we were lifting it over the lintel stone, it slid out of the net a little bit, and the guys were afraid it had rolled onto me and hurt me. It had come my way, but I was able to brace it up and keep it from rolling back on top of me. John actually got hurt worse because his hand apparently got underneath it somehow when this happened. No one has broken anything or had any serious injuries like that, but we’ve had enough of these kinds of experiences to give us some bruises and scrapes.

Dylan & David holding human bones

After all the usual post-digging things like eating lunch, showering, free time, lab work, pottery washing, devotions, and supper, most of us attended a lecture on human anthropology by Emilia Jastrzebska, a “bone expert” who works for the Haiffa teams. At the close of the lecture, we got to look through some boxes of human bones that had been discovered on the site.

To be honest, a few of us might have only gone to that lecture because there was word going around that we would receive dig t-shirts there. Sure enough, as we left the building in which the lecture took place, a truck was parked outside with people asking for sizes and grabbing shirts out of the back. Here are the Concordia University, St. Paul students, or the “Concordia seven,” as Dr. Schuler calls us, showing off our new shirts.

Prayer request: As I write this on July 24, Anna has not been feeling the best. She is staying down at the kibbutz to rest rather than going up to the site tomorrow. Her stomach was bothering her earlier today and seems to be fine now, but staying back is a way to keep from taking any unnecessary chances. Pray that she and all of the others dealing with weakness or injuries of any kind would be brought back to full health.

SEE ALL 10 PHOTOS FROM DAY 17 WITH TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS HERE.

This post is a record of July 16, 2011, but was written later.

Shortly after waking up in the youth hostel, David, Dylan, and I were called to the window. (Although I technically roomed with Matt, I slept in Dylan and David’s room since each room had about 5 beds and there was plenty of room.) We pulled open the blinds, and this is what we saw just outside the window.

There was a small herd (?) of ibex walking past our rooms, having grass for breakfast. They were all around the youth hostel and were fairly tame.

Concordia University, St. Paul group at Masada

After our breakfast, which was much better than the breakfasts we’re accustomed to on the dig site, we packed up our things and left for Masada. Masada is made up of fortresses, palaces, and other buildings on top of a very tall “rock plateau.” To summarize its history, it was fortified by Herod the Great, overtaken by Jews, and then taken again by the Romans. The ancient historian Josephus says that when the Romans laid siege to the city, the Jews decided it would be better to kill themselves than to become slaves. Since suicide is not permitted in Judaism, the men are said to have killed their wives and children before casting lots to determine the order in which they had to kill each other. This way, only the final man had to commit suicide. Josephus records a speech supposedly given by the leader of these Jews, Eleazar ben Ya’ir, before the mass “suicide” took place. Dr. Schuler read this speech to us atop Masada, near the point where the Romans breached the wall. Although the speech and story are very powerful, Dr. Schuler is somewhat skeptical about whether these events actually took place in this way.

Up on Masada, we were given some time to look around and explore a little on our own. It’s a very, very large excavation, especially compared to what we’re used to at Hippos. Between various palaces, bath houses, a temple, and other buildings, it’s a very impressive compound.

starting the climb up Masada

All of this took place once we were at the top, but it was the climb to the top that most of us will take away as one of the biggest memories of Masada. I think Wikipedia says it well: “While a hike up the Snake Path on the eastern side of the mountain (access via the Dead Sea Highway) is considered part of the “Masada experience,” a cable car operates at the site for those who wish to avoid the physical exertion” (source). The key words are the last two.

For those who wanted the full “Masada experience,” I think it was something like a 45-minute “hike” up the snake trail, with emphasis on up. According to a sign, the change in altitude from bottom to top was 350 meters (1,148 feet), and there were about 700 steps along the 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) snake path. We had to stop a few times along the way for water breaks, the sun was very hot, and there was no shade at all, but eventually, we made it to the top, with heavy breathing and sweat-stained clothes. After the touring I described above, the cable car people got back in their car, and those of us who made the hike up went back down again. And, yes, going down was much easier. A few people bought t-shirts at the gift shop that said, “Masada. I came. I saw. I climbed.”

After conquering Masada (pun intended), we stopped for lunch, then bused back to the kibbutz.

the guys sleeping over in Dr. Schuler's lab

Because five of our volunteers would be leaving the following day, all of us would now fit into one building – the women’s building was nicer, so we moved into that one – at the kibbutz. Before leaving for the weekend of touring, the men had moved their things into the women’s building, so when we got back, people shuffled around and the men moved in. However, because those five hadn’t left yet, they still needed a place to sleep. Instead of kicking Dr. and Laura Marrs out of their room that night, Dr. Schuler asked David, Dylan, and me if we would spend the night in the lab, which is where Dr. Schuler stays. Not surprisingly, we agreed, not wanting to miss what is probably the closest we’ll ever get to having a sleepover with Dr. Schuler. We set up two beds and a couch in the pottery room of the lab. We weren’t even bothered by the cockroach or mouse Dr. Schuler warned us about…

Again, I could say that this was another great weekend of touring. While it wasn’t necessarily “enjoyable” to have cuts burn in the Dead Sea or soak in your own sweat climbing Masada, these are the types of things you have to do just once to say you’ve done them. So, this weekend, I got to add some pretty cool things to my “once in a lifetime” list.

SEE ALL 79 PHOTOS FROM DAY 16 WITH TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS HERE.

This post is a record of July 15, 2011, but was written later.

As with the previous two weekends (Friday and Saturday), we spent this one touring. This time, rather than leaving on Thursday evening, we left early on Friday.

The first place we visited was Qumran, an archaeological site near caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. I took a lot of photos of this site, but am not sure what to say about it, so I’ll just encourage you to look at the photos. I’ll just include this one here of me in front of one of the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

Our next stop was Ein Gedi, which is an oasis. Because of the water present, this site was much different than anything else we had seen in Israel. Besides the waterfalls and stream, the green vegetation was also nice to see after being around so much dirt and sand. When we reached the second waterfall and the “pool” area beneath it, I read the story from the Old Testament about Saul going into a cave to relieve himself and David cutting off a part of his robe. Some think that this is the location of that story. After that, we gave into the urge to jump into the cool, clear water. Dr. Schuler took some photos of us swimming under the waterfall, so I’ll upload those when I get them. As someone commented, the refreshment offered by an oasis is really only understandable when you’ve been sweating for weeks under the hot Israeli sun and covered in (and eating) dust for much of your day. The rest of the hike up and then down Ein Gedi was more enjoyable when our clothes were soaked, although they didn’t take all too long to dry.

We ended our time at Ein Gedi by visiting a nearby excavation of a synagogue and then seeing the excavation areas where Dr. Schuler first tried his hand (and broke his wrist) at archaeology.

Our day of touring concluded with a visit to the Dead Sea. I would say that I swam in it, but I didn’t really. In fact, there are many warning signs telling not to “swim” or put your head under the water at all. Like everyone says, you really do just float in the Dead Sea. It was a bizarre feeling and unlike anything I’d experienced before. As the signs said to do, we walked out a little ways into the water and then moved into a sitting position as our legs floated to the surface and we found our whole body bobbing near the surface without any effort on our part. It was fun for a while, but unfortunately, if you have any cuts or scrapes anywhere on your body, they burn. I quickly found out that there was a cut or two I wasn’t aware of on my body… When I had been in the water long enough to say I’d done it, I wasn’t too disappointed to get out and stop the burning. I’m sorry I don’t have photos to post, but Dr. Schuler did take some for us here, too, so I’ll upload those when I have them.

We stayed the night at a youth hostel near the Dead Sea, which was much nicer than most of us expected. We got to take showers, eat a very nice “pre-Sabbath” supper (probably the best meal we’ve had in Israel so far), get up close to some ibex, and enjoy air-conditioned rooms and some time to relax. I’ll post some photos of the hostel on day 16′s post.

We have evening devotions most weeknights, which those of us who volunteered take turns leading, and longer services on Sunday evenings, which are led by the pastors in the group. Day 15 was my turn to lead the evening devotion, so after supper, everyone crammed into the room I shared with one of the other diggers, and I led a prayers and a very short devotion. This continual focus on God’s Word helps connect all that we’re experiencing with our faith, which I have truly valued. I thank Dr. Schuler for taking this approach to our time in Israel.

We knew that we were going to be climbing Masada the next day, so we tried to get a somewhat decent amount of sleep. See day 16′s post for the story about that little adventure.

SEE ALL 90 PHOTOS FROM DAY 15 WITH TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS HERE.

This post is a record of July 14, 2011, but was written later.

On day 14, Glenn used brooms to truly finish F10 West. Here are the photos of the finished room.

F10 West finished

F10 West finished

Having first helped start a new square, XX99, then help finish a square, F10 West, I was now moved to help work on a third square, F10. Dr. Schuler thinks that F10 functioned at one time as some sort of living quarters, located between what might be a storage room, squares E9 and E10, excavated by Darryl’s team, and what might be a room for animals, F10 West. There are doorways that connect these three rooms.

When you think of this new square, F10, simply think of a large box full of dirt. It’s our job to empty that box of everything so that we can see its sides and anything that might be hiding under the dirt. We have four walls, but have no idea how far down we have to go to hit the floor. We don’t know what kind of floor it is either, so we have to be very careful that we don’t start picking into or removing anything that we should be preserving as the floor.

You’ll see in these before and after photos that we try to keep most of the square level as we go down, but that we do have an elevated portion of dirt on one side. We do this so that people can stand on that elevated area and help move buckets of dirt from the area we’re lowering to the top where the dirt is dumped into a wheelbarrow and carried off. As we continue to lower the main area, we find ourselves having to eventually also lower that elevated area. The deeper we go, the more challenging lifting dirt out becomes.

F10 before

F10 after

F10 before (highlighting lentil stone)

I’m not sure which day it happened, but when one of our teams first started working in F10, then discovered a lintel stone above a doorway. You might remember that I had been part of a team that found a lintel stone in XX99 at the beginning of the season, so this marks the second intact one we’ve found just this month. Now there are three known intact lintel stones on Hippos, and the Concordia team has two of them.

F10 after (highlighting bench)

Sadly, day 14 marked the last day of digging for five of our diggers: Dr. & Laura Marrs, Matt, Sarah, and Christine. On this, her last day, Christine uncovered what looks to be another stone bench in F10. She might have been bummed that she won’t get to uncover more of it, but I’m glad that she was able to find it. Those five will tour with us over the weekend (Friday through Saturday) and leave for home on Sunday.

Prayer request: Join me in thanking God for all that these five people added to our team, both in the field and off.

me & Anna at entrance to dig site

SEE ALL 12 PHOTOS FROM DAY 14 WITH TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS HERE.

This post is a record of July 13, 2011, but was written later.

As far as I can remember, day 13 was a fairly normal dig day, so I’m not sure I have too much to blog about. I did, however, get to have one of, if not the first nail find in F10 or F10 West.

nail

Honestly, it wasn’t much of a “find.” When we came back from breakfast, I simply saw the two pieces lying on top of the soil in the west end of F10 West. We think that the pieces possibly got turned up when a guy came through the square earlier that day with a metal detector (why he didn’t find these pieces of metal, though, we’re not sure). A nail is one of the things we find that is concerned an “item.” This means that its location gets noted by measuring the horizontal distances from walls and the depth from the top of a wall. The dimensions of the item itself also get recorded, and the item is photographed. It’s fun when we find something that gets so much attention. On the other hand, we know we’ve been digging in the dirt for too long when a rusty old nail gets us really excited..

Here are the before and after photos for day 13.

F10 West before

F10 West after

Yes, we finally finished F10 West. Altogether, this square gave us a bench, two niches, a place where animals were tied, a watering basin, a lock, and a nail, as well as pottery, glass, bone, and plaster like we find in most squares. We also found quite a bit of ceiling tile. Although the room was already partly excavated when we began, it’s still a good feeling to see the finished room and know that we did a good amount of it.

One room down. Who knows how many more to go.

SEE ALL 4 PHOTOS FROM DAY 13 WITH TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS HERE.

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7/23 UPDATE:

Because I didn’t bring my camera along so I didn’t see any photos of it, I forgot that we also went on a trip with the Haiffa teams on day 13. We toured archaeological sites at Banias and Caesarea Philippi. We were told that we would also get to swim in the Jordan River, so we all wore our swimsuits. We did get to swim, but it turned out to only be a river that feeds into the Jordan. Whatever body of water it was, it was freezing. I don’t remember swimming in any water colder than this. Supper consisted of some drinks, bread, hummus, meat, cheese, and a few other things that we ate picnic-style next to the river. As the hungry American team who isn’t used to the very light suppers they eat here, naturally, we sent ambassadors to the other groups to retrieve any leftovers. Thankfully, there was an abundance of watermelon for dessert, so we all got filled up. Hopefully I can get some photos of this trip from others and upload those.

In years past, Dr. Schuler says that the Haiffa teams would organize one or two trips during the month. This year, they’ve gotten much more organized and have had one trip every week.