East Again

It’s been almost a year since my last post! But since several people have asked me if I’ll be blogging this summer when I return to the Excavation at Shimron, I decided to spruce up the site a bit, and resume posting! Last year only blogger profiles could comment, but it should work for anyone to comment now, so please let me know your thoughts or ask me any questions, I love to hear from you all! As a summary of what I’m doing this year, I’ll be flying to Tel Aviv on June 12, and working for 7 weeks as an “assistant square supervisor” at the Tel Shimron Excavation. Basically, that means I’ll be part of a team within one of the excavation grids, helping to instruct volunteers and record our finds. I am thankful to be placed on staff this year, and am reminded of God’s goodness to me. - Being on staff means all expenses are paid, which makes it possible for me to participate - This will be my 3 rd visit to the “Holy Land” and I consider myself very blessed for that. - It...

This is our last weekend in Israel! Yesterday I went to Beit Shearim and Sepphoris with a few other students. I had never been to Beit Shearim before, it was really neat! It was a city where many diaspora Jews were buried (because the Jews wanted to reside in Israel after death, even if not in life). Beit Shearim means house of gates, and most the tombs are sealed with large stone doors on hinges, which are carved to imitate gates. One of the coolest tombs was the tomb of the sarcophagi, where hundreds of sarcophagi were found. It was quite large, and fun to walk through and explore. We saw a lot at Zippori/Sepphoris which I didn't get to see last time I was there. Sepphoris was the Capitol of Galilee for quite some time after the Romans conquered Palestine. There are many many mosaics there, really fine ones too. Some of the most detailed mosaics from the Roman and Byzantine eras have been found there. There is also a water tunnel we walked through, it was quite narrow and low in...

The 10 day countdown has finally started! I am so excited to get on my plain home, and have already put together my "Coming Home" playlist! But I can't listen to it until I start packing, or until the day of. In the meantime I've found some good pastimes, including swimming. The Kibbutz has a nice pool, and I've been practicing my swimming. I'm feeling more confidant in water, and at last have figured out how to take a breath without getting water in my mouth...a bit late perhaps, but better to learn at 21 than not to learn at all! We also went to the pool at Timrat, the town just East of the Tel, because we were invited by one of the people who lives there , and who is very involved in the survey and excavation at Shimron. He's the one who has put together the education days, and has done much more for publicity and supporting the work to make Tel Shimron into a nice national park. Anyways, we are going back Tomorrow afternoon again to either swim, or jus...

Sunday we had "Community Day" for 3rd graders from neighboring schools. Na-Hee and I had a total of 12 groups, for a total of about 120 kids! It was fun working with our translators, Naomi and Daphna, and getting to talk to the kids through them. I also spoke to the kids in what little Hebrew I know, which isn't much! But they liked it when I did, I think. Every time I said "I don't understand Hebrew" they would say (in Hebrew) "You just spoke Hebrew!" I think they enjoyed it and had fun, and their teachers really enjoyed it too. In fact, students from other grades were jealous they couldn't come, and the parents wanted to be able to come along too, and the Israeli Antiquities Authority was pleased with it. So it was a big success! The Arab schools and Jewish schools will be working together next year so that the Arab schools can send students too. We have one more day, on Thursday, to do the same thing for more 3rd grade Jewish children. ...

This past weekend we went to Jerusalem. Most people were wanting to tour etc, but I was happy to stay with a couple of my friends at JUC, and just enjoy being back. I wasn't expecting to feel "at home" going back, but I did! As soon as we drove onto some streets in West Jerusalem I knew, it felt good to know right where I was, and to have the feeling of being comfortable walking around the area etc. Even after just 3 months, I guess I started to feel like I belonged! I have been homesick here at Mizra (our Kibbutz), so it was nice to have a little bit of a break from that. Mostly I just stayed on campus and talked with my friends there, but we went out to eat, and I went with one of them to church on Saturday. I also did a little shopping on the Old City, and it was nice to be able to walk around by myself somewhat. I really must be an introvert! I like to be able to be by myself now and then, and that is difficult at any dig. I did miss all our friends from the semest...

My last post was a bit old, but I thought I'd post it anyways. Today we did 4 grids, then ended early to talk about School day this Sunday. Like I said, I'm going to be helping explain GPR. So I'll practice by explaining it here! GPR stands for Ground Penetrating RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging). The Box which we pull along the ground contains an antenna, which emits radio waves into the ground. These waves are then reflected back to a receptor antenna, and the computer measures the time it took for the radar pulses to return. Because the velocity at which the radar waves travel differs depending on the material it travels through, we can see where the radio waves have traveled through and reflected off of differing material beneath the ground. This includes objects such as rocks, or differing soil types, so we see a lot of things which are just natural parts of the landscape. However, this also means we can see where rocks are lined up as a wall, or as the foundation o...

Processing data We have hopefully worked most the kinks out of our system (such as glitches with the GPR, etc), and have set a goal of 5 grids a day. This means we measure out five 30x30 grids and run the Mag and GPR over them. And hopefully process a good portion of the data as well. This week we made good progress, even completing over 5 grids some days! This weekend I stayed at the Kibbutz for the most part, but we went out to dinner in Nazareth of Saturday. It was delicious! I really like Arab food. I had grilled chicken in an orange glaze, but everything people ordered looked very good! We will probably go back there again. Now that JVRP has left, there are only 12 of us total, so we go out for dinner quite often. It makes things fun! Sunday we went to the beach near tell Dor. The water was nice and warm! We saw several jelly fish on the beach though, and a couple in the water, so we may not be able to swim much more. Sunrise over Mt. Tabor This week has been only 4 day...

Yesterday I went for a walk after we got back to the Kibbutz, and sat down on a chunk of basalt near a watermelon field to drink my instant coffee and enjoy the view. Our Kibbutz is in the Jezreel Valley, not far from Nazareth. In fact, from where I was sitting, I had a direct view of the mount which is remembered to be the one where Jesus was almost thrown off, after he returned to Nazareth and taught in their synagogue. I was at the top of that mount with JUC about a month ago. This picture is the view I had. It's the pointy one in the middle. Of course, we don't really know if that was the exact mountain, Luke just says "They brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built so that they could throw him down the cliff." (Luke 4:29). Nazareth is just behind that mount, in a little bit of a depression, so you can't see it from bellow.  Even if that isn't the exact spot, it's pretty neat to think about Jesus growing up just behind it, an...

We are fully into the swing of surveying here at Shimron. Last week we dug a couple small (1x1m) test pits, 30cm deep to see what sort of pottery there is across the Tell. I got to do a couple of those, but most the week I was part of the “Reconnaissance Survey,” where we measure out 10x10m squares across the whole tell, and for 10 minutes collect all the pottery we can find on the surface. There were about 400 of these squares, and we had two teams of four, but we got it done by the end of Friday! Yesterday we had off, and I just stayed at the kibbutz to read and relax. Today, two teams dug some larger and deeper test pits, but I was on the magnetometry team. Elise taught us how to use the magnetometer, and how to set up the measuring tapes in grids. The Magnetometer measures the magnetic pull of the ground beneath it. This way, if you have something underground, like a wall, it will show up because it causes the ground in that area to have a different magnetivity. That’s what I ...

I made it to Tell Shimron! Today was our third day of Surveying. Our first day was a bit rough, we ran into multiple problems. For one, all the "benchmark" markings from last year had worn off, so we had to try and set them again with the GIS Station. That allows us to know right where we are on the tell, and set up an accurate grid. Now that we are in the swing of things, we are able to survey quite a few of the grids in a day. Each grid is 20x20m, but we only do reconnaissance survey on 10x10m of each grid. This means that for 10 minutes we walk over the area and collect any pottery on the surface. We begin at about 5:15, and take a breakfast break at 9:00. After lunch at 1:30 we wash pottery, and the professors and archaeologists read it. Reading pottery means they go through and determine what time period is prominent etc. It is amazing to see how well they know pottery, and how they can tell from a tiny sherd what it used to belong to. Our first day was extremely h...