Winter Wash

The Season has begun! 

Tomorrow the volunteers arrive, but we've been spending the past three days cleaning up the 'winter wash' (debris accumulated in the excavation area) from the past two years. We also have been hosting local school kids to show them how to excavate etc. It is a good way for the community to be involved in the dig and to feel a part of the excavation.

The team enjoying dinner at CafeCafe our first night together.

Jack Sheffer, the GIS guy for Grid 92, working atop our dump pile.

Goals for this Season

My square ("92.97") looks very different than how I left it in 2017. We dug about two meters down in the SE quadrant, but the rest of the square was close to the elevation of topsoil. This was because we discovered the first meter of soil was empty of antiquities. To avoid spending days removing empty dirt, we concentrated on a 5x5 meter portion of the square. In preparation for this year, most the empty fill layer was removed with a backhoe before I arrived. Now I have a full 10x10 meters again...so much room! The first goal in my square is to "bring it to phase" that is, to expose one phase (or period) throughout the entire square. After the Hellenistic is exposed in the entire area, we will document it thoroughly and go below to find the Bronze Age material. Today, after removing the protective geo-textile filled with really big spiders (aaaghh!) I was able to expose and clean the Hellenistic wall I excavated in 2017.

My square! I call this shot, "Wind in the Shade Cloth"

The "turea" is our primary tool for now, used to scrape up loose dirt.

There are 3 squares open in Grid 92. One is mine, and the other two are West of me, pictured above. 

The Daily Schedule

I'm up at 4:15, we leave for the site at 5:00am. This is to get some hours of work in before the sun is too hot. We eat breakfast at 8:00am (usually eggs, cucumber and tomato salad, yogurt and lavna, bread and fruit) Then back to work till 2pm for lunch. When the volunteers arrive, we'll take lunch at 1:00 and work until 3:00 in the shade washing pottery.

Walking back to the Pottery Compound for breakfast.

New sifts for finding small artifacts in dirt removed from the area.

Part of the season preparation was building a drainage platform
for the water spiket at the Pottery Compound.

It's all coming back...

Last summer we did not excavate, but a team of us worked to create a typology of the pottery we found in 2017. Since my square will soon be in Middle Bronze (MB) material, I was working on the MB pottery. We compared it with MB pottery found at other sites in the Jezreel Valley to identify and name the vessels we are finding. For instance, "Shimron Bowl 10" is an Eggshell-Ware Carinated Bowl. This helps us know what pottery we are finding, and what time period it is from, etc. 

Yesterday we had a refresher-course on the work we did in 2018, and caught up to speed those who were not here last year. I was excited to see how much of it I remembered from last year! It will be fun to excavate and recognize what vessel the sherds we collect belong to!

Grid 92's team looking at MB pottery.

What We're Finding 

We've found some exciting things, even while only during cleanup. However, I need to be discreet with posting pictures etc, since it is important to clean, study and publish material before it becomes publicly declared. I will say, however, that we found a nest of 6 lizard eggs today! The kids thought it was pretty cool, so did I!

Lizard egg discovered on sight today.