I Can’t Believe It, I Am Going To Miss Waking Up at 4AM to Dig a Hole…

Helen Alesbury writes:

It is the last day. Last day.  It is the last day.  I just keep telling myself that it is ending, this is when I go off to the airport and leave Megiddo behind.  Maybe if I say it enough it will set in before I land in New Zealand, my next stop.  Maybe that way I won’t be hit with a sledgehammer realizing too late that it is the LAST day.  I think most people find themselves lamenting the speed of time when an adventure ends.  “It’s too fast”, “I can’t believe we are done!”, “why has time STOPPED?!”.. etc. Time, no matter how we prepare ourselves for it, has a funny way of sneaking up on us and going the speed we least expect (and usually desire) it to go.  But really, what is the normal speed of time? And when it is normal, do we think it is too slow?  After three weeks in Israel, I have come to the not-so-startling realization that time NEVER moves as you want it to.   That time between morning and breakfast on the tel, those minutes before 8:30 seem to crawl by as if time is taunting us.  But, at the same time, we are speeding through the days faster than I could have ever believed.  The countless sunrises, over Megiddo, Jerusalem, Masada… seem so much closer together when you look back on them.  How did this happen?

Well, to begin with, we all sort of worked hard. Really hard.  Potential slave labor hard.  Oh-my-God-I-am-so-tired-I-want-to-die hard.  The exhaustion that sets in at 8PM and seems never to be cured with sleep creates a mind numbing sensation where time has no control.  Day after day of pick axing, digging, burning, sweating, yelling, hitting snooze, eating hummus, hiking the tel, hydrating, clearing areas, sweeping….oh the sweeping. Never has time moved so slowly as when you are instructed to “sweep your square to clean it up”.  Honestly, archaeologists seem to have missed that crucial day in 3rd grade about how dirt is DIRT and is DIRTY and is the opposite of CLEAN.  We have had some amazing times on Megiddo, during the ungodly hours of the morning when your body is raging against every movement–this is made only slightly better by the amusing fact that the prison down in the Jezreel Valley that we get a view of has morning calls at 7AM…7 seems like such a luxurious lie in, those prisoners have it GOOD.  People start asking what time it is around 6, waiting for that “breakfast!” call that seems to never come.  Some yell “no! I don’t want to know”, as if they could hide from the unrelenting, overpowering grip of time.  You can run, but you can’t hide.  Come to think of it, I don’t really know why we were so excited for breakfast…after the tenth or twelfth cheese sandwich with cucumbers and onions at 8:30 AM, breakfast starts to lose its luster, and turns into more of a social hour.  In fact, this whole dig is like a social hour. Pottery washing become like the archaeological café, sit and chat with your friends for a time.

In fact, more than that, we have all become a family. In area Q the bonds that have been forged are astounding.  I find I keep hearing “did you/they know each other before this?”, as if it is impossible to become so close in so short a time.  But, alas, time never does what you expect.  I think when you wake up at 4 with someone everyday for 3 weeks, you start something stronger than a friendship, you start connecting.  After breakfast when we take the second hike up the tel of the day we all were rejuvenated, fresh and ready to dig.  We area Q-ers usually came back to find that Stanley, the resident gopher has left some nice little piles of dirt around the area, as if saying “dig here, you are going too slow”….every couple of hours you hear a “Stanley!” and you know that a new hole has been discovered, and that again time has been disrupted…as cute as he is (we imagined), Stanley is messing with our precious stratigraphy.

It really is amazing how much has happened in the last three weeks, the weekend trips to Jerusalem, Ashkelon, Gezer, the Dead Sea, Ein Gedi, Nazareth, Tel Aviv.  The incredible sites that we see everyday and may take for granted.  I have never appreciated a good breeze as I have in the last three weeks.  You can see it in everybody’s face when they stand up, spread their arms and close their eyes to feel the wind…they have NEVER felt as good than in that one fraction of a moment.  This week has been spent with silences of just appreciating that we are in freaking ISRAEL on an ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG, followed by a heartfelt “I’m going to miss you guys” as if we are in some stupid teen movie about camp and we have all become best buddies….well, we kind of are.  More than once I have heard people exclaiming “is this ACTUALLY happening? Am I going to wake up and this is not really real?”.  Clearly this has been a positive experience for all, I know I will be one of those crazy people sitting alone who starts laughing to herself because of something that happened weeks ago…I bet it is going to be something Philippe did.  I can just see the fit of hysterics and the looks I will get as I recall the excitement over those damn astragal bones and start giggling while waiting for my flight.

So, as we wind down the last hours and minutes it seems too rushed, time is going too quickly again.  I just need one more day, just one more cheese and cucumber sandwich for breakfast with crappy powdered coffee that may or may not have some sort of dirt mixed in (I am going to say it is from area L).  During the last couple of days we have been going over what we are going to miss, and how amazing it is that we are all so close and that this has been so great…who knew that 4AM was one of the most beautiful times of day, or that 6AM has its own unique smell that is nothing like 7AM, or how you only realize how hot you are when it cools.  You only realize how much fun you are having when it is almost over.  Well…anyway I took the liberty to create a list of all the crazy reasons why while we may miss things, it is clear we need to go back to real life for a time before we come back:

Top 10 Signs You Have Been at Megiddo Too Long:

10. You have more than once considered sleeping with your backpack on so that you can literally just walk out the door at 4:40AM…or going in your pajamas.

9. You have started to name the features in your square and have become emotionally attached (”Don’t sit on Shishaq! You’re hurting him!”)

8. The 5 second rule no longer applies to anything.  New rule: if it is food….eat it.

7. You think being thrown down the Tel would be cool…and ask Rafi and Paul to push you over in a wheelbarrow

6. You have in depth conversations about the subtle soil change you uncovered that day…and are actually interested in it

5. You forget that people don’t actually bring beer to lectures in the real world.

4. You have started licking bone even when you don’t need to see if it is bone….because you like the taste.

3. You can ID the different areas of Megiddo…by taste.

2. Sleeping ’til 5 AM sounds freaking awesome

1. You start to think of dirt as a spice.

Every once and a while I think about all of the things I am going to miss, the 4AM bus, that early morning trek to the Area Q (yeah area Q!! Exposure, but no penetration), those black millipedes, the ant vortexes, the chocolate bars with pop rocks, the sore hand from holding a trowel for 8 hours, the weekend trips to wherever, the horrible kibbutz food, the great kibbutz food, hummus at EVERY meal, the pub, the lectures with drinking games, the excitement over breakfast, my random-Israeli-candy-bar-of-the-day, sandwiches for breakfast, Turkish coffee, having a guard, the sticky heat, the excitement over finding a small bead, pottery washing, bone washing, Tel tours, tourists taking pictures of us, sleeping on the bus, walking down the tel at 1PM, that first shower you take after getting back, having just eggs and chips for dinner, having no dinner, sunscreen, those damn flies, spider bites, Norma, the undying desire to find a really big wall, the unrelenting urge to destroy really big walls, pick axing, sleeping in wheelbarrows, elevensies, port-a-potties, those white drinking water containers, naming pottery buckets, sitting around with everyone on the last day, enjoying the sun, the Brits, the Israelis, the Norwegian (), the Australians, every person I met, Ian, Philippe and his crazy rock removal, the fact that the wheelbarrow path is the highest priority, watching Cline run around with his camera, feeling gross and dirty, not missing TV, passing out at 8PM, thinking 10PM is REALLY late, Ben’s laugh, Norma’s laugh, Area Q, Area K’s sing along that we could hear everyday at elevensies, Jen’s fruit leather, Marshalltowns, finding bones, the prison breakout sirens, watching the sun rise every morning, the Jezreel valley, hearing Rafi complain, watching Robyn yell at Rafi, hearing Mario all the way in Area Q, dumping stuff down the Tel, the shade, seeing how far we have come since the first day, pretty much EVERYTHING.

So, as the 3 weekers depart and the dig goes on for the 7 weekers (make sure the new people don’t mess it up!) I am reminded of how much I hate leaving a good thing, but then again, change is good, and time will never let us have our way, the 7 weekers will be exclaiming “how did it go by so quickly?!” in no time, and soon Tel Megiddo will have no more diggers and lay waiting for us all to return in 2010, if not for digging, than to at least watch more sunrises and feel one more great breeze….

-Helen

End of First Session

Eric Cline writes:

The first session at Megiddo has come to a successful conclusion.  The second session will begin in a few days.  Hopefully we will have another crew of bloggers beginning to post soon.  Stay tuned!

Days of Dirt and Bones

Sara Westfall writes

More news from Area Q. For the last several days, we have found absolutely nothing in our square. After removing the pavement, two walls, the plaster floor, and part of the Jacuzzi wall, we have found only one thing: LOTS and LOTS of dirt. We were all very demoralized and I have about 20 mosquito bites all over my body.

Today we felt a change in the wind. First, I forgot my camera, which would be the first sign that we would find something. Second, since we were all very demoralized, Zach brought us juice, Pringles, and Oreos (which he’d never tried before). We took one strip of our square down to the level of the Jacuzzi and found nothing. We were sure we were going to have to level the rest of the square as well. However, first we decided to find the base of the giant stone in the middle of the Jacuzzi. While pushing back the top layer of dirt, I noticed several bones. I began pushing back some more of the dirt and realized we had a lot of bones, in fact it looked like a whole skeleton. Don’t get too excited now, it’s not human. Our resident zoo-archaeologist believes it is either a dog or a cat (or several, as it appears there is more than one skeleton). The more popular theories are either a cat-rat or an ancestor of Stanley (our resident and very elusive gopher).

The mystery further deepened when Zach uncovered a multitude of cartridge shells and the top to a mortar round on the other side of the rock. Even more puzzling, we couldn’t find the skull of the animal. Toward the end of the day, we still weren’t sure whether the animal was from 1948 or earlier. Of course as I was sweeping up, I discovered a spent bullet cartridge right next to one of the skeletons. There’s still too much unknown for me to piece together an exciting and highly fictionalized version of what happened. Professor Cline was musing that perhaps it was an attack dog that was in the trench with the soldiers. Of course the animal is like the size of a poodle, but he makes a valid point that those can be vicious. Maybe next week I can put together a story, possibly involving an Israeli named Mordecai, an Arab named Ahmed, and the sad story of an attack poodle named Zebedee.

On a personal note, I visited Jerusalem this weekend. I went to see most of the main holy sites and haggle in the markets. I got to bring in Shabbat at the Western Wall and kneel at the site where Christ was crucified in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It was really awesome to feel such a deep connection not only to the divine but also to history.

Dreaming of Digging…or Digging in Dreams

Sara Belkin writes:

I think digging has taken over my life. This is evident by the fact that last night, as I was sleeping all the way down south in Jerusalem, I woke up in the middle of the night, and thought I was lying down in my Lower J square. For a few seconds I really believed I was in the dirt, with my trowel, digging. This shows that the Megiddo excavations are following me, even in my dreams. But, luckily, digging at Megiddo, has proven to be a fulfilling experience. I have been to Israel twice before, once on Birthright, and secondly, as a study abroad student at Hebrew University; both two very different experiences. And Megiddo is no different, I love being able to watch the sunrise and know that a whole day of possibilities (of new finds, new friends, and new experiences) awaits. I love the swim in the Kibbutz pool that washes away all the stresses from the day, and I love that we get such wonderful hands-on experiences in archaeology –­ something that I, as an archaeology student, am really grateful for. Therefore, digging at Megiddo is different than anything I have done previously in Israel. Even being in Jerusalem this weekend, with my Megiddo friends, has shown me that Israel is never the same, even three times around. Thus, the lesson I learned from my night stay in Jerusalem is that I can experience many different Israels each time I travel here, and also that sleeping next to a wall might lead me to think I am lying 3 meters deep in a 4×4 meter square.

Third Week in Area K

Kristine Merriman writes:

So another week has passed for Area K at Megiddo.  As the third week begins (the last for quite a few people), I am amazed to see what we have accomplished and the bonds which have formed.  First, Area K looks completely different than it did just two weeks ago.  We have taken down the rest of the baulks, removed a few walls, and reformed the baulks again.  Wonderful artifacts have floated across my desk, and hopefully some questions have been answered though we will answer more.  Great friendships have formed, potential relationships have begun, and a few have been tested.  All of this is what makes an excavation worth it.  You would never know how much we all look forward to eating, showering, and that afternoon Coca-Cola.  I have often wondered why I love digging so much (I’m not necessarily a fan of being covered in dirt and sweat most of the time).  The answer is the relationships that a dig forces you to make with the present and the past.  I realized this morning that I only have four days left with some of these people before others come in.  More than that, I will miss them.  This is not to say I’m not excited about the next four and a half weeks, but everyone of us is different.  Where else can you be totally filthy, exhausted, and feel like you’ve known people your entire life after only two weeks?  I doubt that another place like this exists.  All of us have come to connect to one another, but more importantly to connect to history.  It is amazing that so many people with such different backgrounds and personalities can connect in positive ways over such a seemingly minor thing.  However, history is major to us.  It allows us all to get up at 4:15 in the morning, work hard all day, be dirty and without makeup, and still have a ton of fun.  It’s truly an opportunity not to be missed.

Learning to See

Loren Crow writes:

I’ve spent the last two weeks plowing through almost a meter-thick destruction layer that occurred between the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age. Most of what I’ve encountered has been junk: burnt mud bricks, burnt wood beams, a huge fire pit, and lots of burnt pottery (can you sense a theme here?). Almost nothing “fun” appeared. What I had hoped would be a lovely clay tablet with an inscription on it turned out to be merely a flat piece of basalt. The one bronze artifact I came across was so degraded that it was impossible to see what it had been before it broke into about twelve little pieces. I’ve had no fancy finds, nothing that will make the cover of NEA or BAR, not even anything that sounds exciting in a blog.

But that doesn’t tell the whole picture, and part of the problem is that I have to learn to see correctly. When we first begin digging in the morning, the sun is not yet out and a grey half-light barely illuminates the depths of the trench in which I’m digging. For this reason, I usually try not to do any of the kind of archaeology that might require throwing stuff away. I might loosen the soil with a pickaxe, or get the tools in place for work, but I refrain from the careful sorting through dirt until there’s enough light. I’m afraid that, in the pre-dawn murkiness, I’ll miss something really important.

I think this may be a good metaphor for the rest of the day, as well. I need to remind myself that not everything worth noticing is shiny and beautiful. Even some of those burnt mud bricks can be important from the standpoint of making sense of the destruction. The fire that raged throughout the whole of Tel Megiddo was incredibly hot and completely pervasive.

But what was the cause of this? Some scholars think the city was purposely set on fire after it had been defeated in battle, either during the Israelite invasion or at some point after that. Others ascribe the destruction to an earthquake (earthquakes are commonly associated with fires). The question has yet to be answered to the satisfaction of everyone.

At the very least, I think we can try imagine what an ordinary person might feel at the sight of an entire city engulfed in flames, with flames reaching perhaps 30 meters into the sky and a plume of smoke visible for miles. I imagine that some people might have seen the spectacle and realized that their own end was fast approaching. Others, perhaps, thought that they had been delivered from the tyranny of the city that clearly would have exacted taxes from people living throughout the entire area. A few probably went a step further and interpreted the fall of Megiddo as the work of a holy God whose care for the poor and landless led Him to “bring down the mighty from their thrones.”

And I think they may have been right; it’s just that I have to learn to see it.

One Week Left (for the first session)

Helen Alesbury writes:

Damn.  Only one week left (for the first session).  One more week of back breaking pick axing, toreah (giant hoe on steroids) work, moving tons of stones and earth, painfully bending down to articulate walls, and sweeping dirt from dirt.  What. A. Shame.

No really, this time has slipped by very quickly, despite the fact that we get up at 4 in the morning every day and drag ourselves to the bus and then up (in area Q’s case) to the top of the tel to begin some invigorating 5 AM pick axing, this week seems to have gone pretty quickly.  Well, most of it. There is something wrong with the time between 5AM and 8:30AM while we wait for breakfast.  I am fairly certain that at some points, time actually STOPS.  No matter how much time you spend staring at your square, or pointing out the gopher holes (our area gopher has been named Stanley) or just sitting on the balk when you are not supposed to, it remains 7:15 for about 45 minutes. No joke.  We have attempted to keep the “do not announce the time” rule in effect, but when it starts to be about 8:15 and we get all excited (hell, even when it is 6:15 we get excited…..the sun is officially up!), we can’t really help it.  There are cheese and onion sandwiches waiting for us at the bottom.  I must say, it was interesting the first couple of days to have the cheese/hummus/tuna sandwiches for breakfast, now, after two weeks, it has gotten kind of bland and ordinary.  We need some pancakes…..no, I cannot, nay, will NOT think about tasty foods that are quite impossible to obtain in the near future.  But really, we all need a good, hot, perfectly brewed cup of coffee and a lawn chair, rather than a wheelbarrow to recline in.

After breakfast we go back up to our areas and continue the relentless pick axing and clearing. We have come a long way in area Q.  We started with nothing but a rocky, grassy terrain and now have our 5 by 5 squares that are getting quite deep.  My square (along with Christopher and Naomi from Norway and England respectively) has a very substantial wall and some impressive pottery pieces, though that is nothing to the whole pot, and grind stone with pestle that our neighboring squares have discovered.  Whatever, they don’t have walls like ours.  Overall, area Q has gotten quite interesting

Now, as the week reaches an end and everyone is organizing the weekend, most are going to Jerusalem, and a good amount are first going on the field trip to Gezer and Ashkelon on Saturday to have a tour of their digs.

No matter where we are going, we are all just hoping that it cools down.  We knew it was hot, but apparently it has been abnormally hot for Israel the past few days and especially the last couple of mornings we have been waking up to a cold damp haze that sits on our skin and prevents any cooling later in the day when the sun breaks through the hazy clouds.  The humidity just sits on my skin and makes movement hard, much less pick axing.  Regardless, we keep digging, keep on sweeping dirt (as crazy as that sounds) on the off chance that we find Josiah’s diary, or Solomon’s underwear.  This weekend though is mainly just to enjoy Israel and explore Jerusalem, because sadly we only have one week left…what a shame.

Area J Picture Pavement

Rachel Navarro writes:

Now that the week is over, its a lot easier to look back and consider some of the great things that happened.  As mentioned in my previous post, I found previously unnoticed incisions on an already exposed slab last week.  Around two edges of the rock there are small “cup-marks” or indentations that are clearly man-made and intentional. Dr. Ussishkin told me I had earned my breakfast that day, which I later learned was actually a compliment.  It was my first semi-major archaeological discovery, and I was more than a little excited. It was most encouraging because we knew that the University of Chicago excavators had removed all of the pavement slabs that they had noticed in the 1920s.

Finally after taking a week and a half of digging and removing approximately (or maybe slightly exaggeratedly) 16 cubic meters of dirt, we finally have reached the pavement in our square.    It was one of the most gratifying things I have done to finally brush the dirt off the large slabs of limestone and basalt in our square. There weren’t any that were noticeably incised with drawings but there were a few that at least seemed to have intentional lines scratched into them.  On Sunday we will clean them off more and take a closer look.

Last night, Adi, our supervisor and expert on the picture pavement, gave a lecture to the entire expedition on the drawings found by Chicago and argued that the incisions were done by Egyptian artists because of the artistic style and subject matter.  The more I learn about Megiddo in the Early Bronze Age the more intrigued I am by the area.  Megiddo was a massive cultic center that would have drawn worshipers from a large area, including the huge area of the Jezreel Valley that was covered by Megiddo’s domestic area.  I would love to excavate that area and see just what these people were up to.  The Early Bronze 1 B temple was bigger than any monumental architecture in the Levant, including Egypt, which makes me wonder just what kind of role Megiddo played in the development of culture across the region.  Working in this area and working to answer some of these questions has been a blast this week, and I can’t wait to see what discoveries the coming week will bring.

Staring Contest with Masada

Sara Westfall writes:

Our first weekend here in Israel has come and gone and although it was a short one, it was jam packed with fun and adventure. Myself and fourteen other people toured Masada, the Dead Sea, and Qumran…all on Saturday before 1pm. We left the kibbutz Friday afternoon for Jerusalem where we would catch our tour. Our taxi driver didn’t speak any English (and apparently not much Hebrew either) and didn’t know where our hostel was. After a lot of awkward moments and asking people on the street we finally found our hostel in the Armenian quarter next to the Jaffa Gate. Since our tour started at 3am, we decided to sleep on the roof with mattresses. The view was unbelievable. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was no more than 3 or 4 blocks to our left and straight ahead was the Dome of the Rock. I can’t describe how awesome it was to fall asleep with the Dome all lit up straight ahead of me. When I woke up an hour later it was freezing cold. I turned on my back and looked up at the stars and managed to find the Big Dipper…hmm just like back home. It still blew my mind that was in this place that I had wanted to see since I was a child.

I wanted to stay there for days, but that would have to wait. We had other adventures to tackles that day. We boarded the bus at 3am and headed south. I fell asleep with the cool breeze blowing through the window. I woke up to very hot air blowing on my face. At first I thought, “Who turned off the air conditioning?” However, that was not the problem. We were now in the desert and not just any desert but one that was a part of a chain of deserts that stretches from North Africa to China. We arrived at Masada while it was still dark. I thought to myself, “No problem, we’ll be to the top by sunrise.” Ya right. That was the most arduous climb I’d ever been on and I was sure I was not going to make it. However I was determined to see the sunrise. As I got nearer to the top, the light started to grow over the hills beyond the Dead Sea. I found my last reserve of energy and picked up the pace, pleading with God to delay the sunrise until I got to the top and threatening the sun that it better not think about rising before I got there. It started to peek over the hills just I was getting to the top. I raced to a viewing point and it was the most breath taking thing I’d seen in a long time. I’m not a morning person, so I don’t see many sunrises (until this trip of course) and it was incredible to see the whole earth just light up and the big fiery ball climb up the sky. This was definitely something I had to do before I die and now I can cross it off the list. So I made it to the top before sunrise on the most grueling climb I’ve ever made. Masada and I had a staring contest and Masada blinked. We explored the ruins for a while and then an hour after I’d made that epic climb, I came right back down it. I bought a shirt in the gift shop that reads, “Masada: I came, I saw, I climbed.” I think I earned it.

Next we headed to the Dead Sea. I was really excited to be able to just sit in the water and float there. We put on our bathing suits, ran down to the beach, and treaded over hot sand and jagged rocks to get to the water. I pushed myself off the side of rocks and there I was: effortlessly floating on the water. Myself and a couple other girls floated next to each for a few minutes. However suddenly there was a change and a burning the likes of which I’d never felt before came over me. All the girls looked at each other and we knew we all felt the same pain. After trying to put up with it for several minutes, we all bolted for the beach and up the hill to the cool refreshing showers. I was disappointed, but at least I can now say I’ve been to the Dead Sea.

Lastly we headed for Qumran, the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. We saw a short film about the site and went through a small museum. Then we headed outside to explore the ruins of the ancient site. I could’ve walked a ways up to the caves, but I was far too burned out at that point to make such a trek. I just enjoyed the views from afar, the hills in front of me and the sea behind me.

When we got back on the bus, our driver cut open a watermelon for us and it was the best watermelon I’d ever had. For an extra fee, we were taken back straight to the kibbutz. All in all, it was a pretty great one day weekend. However, I was very burned out and am just now recovering from it. But it’s a small price to pay to now be able to say I’ve seen the sunrise over Masada.

Another Week Bites the Dust

Kat J. writes:

A week of work and one exciting weekend have taken their toll on some of our spirits but nothing that a night at the pub couldn’t remedy…and so we are slowly getting ready to say goodbye to some of our 3 weekers and looking forward to meeting the newbies.

All of us at Area J have been busy with prepping our squares for digging and although they have not yet been officially assigned, J has been delivering the goods. The J pavement area has been understaffed for the last couple of days but many great finds have come out of the ground including beads and large basalt grinding stones. In J proper, we have found what appear to be two large benches in the temple complex which is very exciting but as usual, more questions than answers arise with each passing day. But that’s the beauty of archaeology…you never know what each day will bring. We also had some important visitors on Tuesday who helped us to decide the fate of certain structures at J that need to be removed for safety and other reasons.