Canada Day, Eh?

Plenty of fun to report today; heavy work has a lighter side too.

The Canadian appeal for a statutory holiday went about as far as we thought it would, which is to say not very far at all. Dr. Schuler's instant answer, after hearing the end of our petition, was "Not a chance." I was actually more worried that he'd say "yes" and we'd have to figure out what to do with ourselves all day, so the no suited me fine, and the whole point was just to have fun anyway. The way Quinn and the others wrote it up made sure we got lots of laughs as he read it aloud to the whole assembled group, including references to Canada being the land of "good government, good order, good hockey, and good beer," and to her founders having taken their stand "not on the basis of force-of-arms but with the inspiration of a case of scotch." Oh, Canada!

Here are three great quotes from work today, too (mandatory, unpaid slave-labour that it was), two of them involving Ian.

First, after Gene made maybe a bit too big of a deal out of his monogrammed rock-pick (a gift from somebody in his congregation), Ian said that he certainly didn't have one of those, though he'd written in his name on his underwear with permanent marker, if that was close.

Second, when Dan asked if there were traditional Canada-day activities our crew was planning for the afternoon, Ian told him that pottery-washing at 5:00 pm followed by supper and bed was pretty typical of how most Canadians traditionally celebrate.

And finally, this from Gene, part-way through the morning's work: "D'yuh know what ah'd be if ah wudn't a Baptist? Ashayamed!"

The level of levity reflected well the lighter workload today, and also the continuation of this surprising stretch of good weather ("just like a beatiful Canadian summer day," I told Dr. Schuler at lunch). Again we had cloud-cover until after 10 am, meaning that we were barely even sweating at all for the first few hours. The work was a lot easier than yesterday, too; we had the pick-work done in F-1 before 6:00, and after that it was just a matter of using turreah and bucket, over and over again. There were a few large stones along its eastern perimeter, but otherwise the whole work-area was nothing more than dirt and fist-sized stones that were quick and easy to dispose of. The downside was that there were very few significant "finds." I came up with the spout of a small jug, which was kind of cool since I'd never found one of those before, and two guys each found an intact jug-handle, one of them quite large and relatively ornamental, but otherwise that was about it. Just steady, monotonous work. Three guys worked on their knees from the south edge of the square northward in order to be shaded by the screen on the north side by the time the sun came out. Two guys worked standing up beside the north edge of the square, working from the east and west edges toward the centre. And the last guy carried the buckets of dirt filled by the other five, dumping them into the road just west of our square so the backhoe could pack them down to improve the road surface. At water-break, every half-hour, we'd rotate around. And that was that.

Actually the best diversions today came from other squares. One was in another "F" square to the south of us, where the crew was hauling very large stones out of rubble into the middle of the street and piling them there until the crew of big strong guys (yes, us!) came down to haul them away. We did that twice, each time taking turns loading these big heavy suckers into our wheelbarrows then trucking them up the hill past our own square onto the rock-pile. And the other diversion was in another "0" square to the east of us, A-0, where Arny's crew was poking around outside the church's apse looking for evidence that the street continued beyond it to the north. Sure enough, they found a beautiful wall, about a foot beneath the surface: carefully-cut stones in a perfectly straight line all the way across the square. Even though they've only gone down one course, it's already clear that it's probably the best-built wall in the whole North-East Church complex--definitely not put together by the same people who built everything else!

And that's about it for the day, right there. The physicality of the work, the conviviality of the company, the beauty of the scenery, the simplicity of the routine: it all adds up to an experience I'm once again thriving on.

The most troubling dimension is simply how long the opportunity to do this kind of work will be here. I knew before the trip began that there was some question whether the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) would renew the dig's permit past the 2009 season, but I didn't know until last night how doubtful that renewal appears to be. Apparently there's some strife between the IAA and the National Parks Authority which shares jurisdiction of the site, but the bigger problem seems to be the lack of obviously Jewish structures in the ancient city. For most of antiquity it was a Gentile city, not Jewish, and by the time of its destruction it was pretty much wholly Christian. For a time, some years ago, it looked as though the excavators had indeed found a synagogue in the south-west domestic quarter, but it turned out to be just another church instead. So it's not that the IAA has anything "against" Hippos: the city just doesn't have enough going "for" it, in terms of Israel's present-day national interest. Sad.