My Career In Ruins...

So, I'm home and the ostrich egg has made it.  So, for all those wondering, here is the story from Arny:

"One day, during the third week, after lunch in the cafe.  I asked Efrat if it was possible to get an Ostrich egg.  After confirming that I was serious, she introduced me to her brother-in-law, who happened to be there at the time, and I explained to him that I just wanted an empty shell.  He said 'Wait here' and left.  About 15 minutes later, he returned with the egg.  It turns out he runs the animal operation at the kibbutz.  I offered to pay him something but all he wanted was for me to find a gold coin at the excavation and give it to the authorities.  So you see there was no need for ninjas although that would have made a better story.  As you know, I have not fulfilled my part of the deal but since I no longer possess the egg.  I am passing that responsibility on to its current owner."

We'll see what I can do. 

As for other loose ends, thank you, dear readers, for following the blog this year.  Also thank you to the team for working with me and making everything run so smoothly this year. 

You all were FAN...TASTIC.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm done! I'm done! I'm done!

I just dropped off the two oil lamps and the amphora head to Jolanta, who is working outside next door on the Israeli's pottery.  She again complimented the team, saying "I trust your team with your pottery.  You don't mix contexts and you keep in ordered."  So well done team. 

As for the amphora - sigh.  If it is possible to feel great affection for an inanimate object, I do.  It was in an awful lot of pieces and dirty when Glenn brought it out of the earth and dirty.  So we gathered together all of the sherds that seemed to fit and then brought them down to the lab.  I first dry-brushed the pieces to remove the excess dirt so I could try to find more writing. 

Then I laid out all the pieces and found one with red paint, but no discernable writing, to see how the paint would react to cleaning.  I used a dry cutip first, but even with that, I noticed pieces of red coming off.  So, for the rest of the pieces, I avoided touching the writing.  Then, because I was worried that the water I was using to get off the dirt for the non-writing parts would drip onto the writing, I cleaned mostly everything with cutips. 

Once all my pieces were dry, I started reassembling.  Once pieces fit together, I glued them with Israeli Elmer's (water soluable!) and then taped.  

And I got to sit in my lab, lovingly fitting each of those little pieces together, to the point that I finally finished.

And it is beautiful, especially since I had no idea what it would look like when I was putting it together.  And the compliment from Jolanta about the reconstruction wasn't such a bad thing either.   

One of the most well-known sports among the archaeological world (at least among us classicists) is cistern diving.  The rules are as such. 

One: Uncover a cistern (man-made hole often bottle-like in shape used for catching and storing water).  The credit for this discovery goes to Brennan (here with his headlamp, ready for the game):

Two: Fasten a rope ladder (such as the one used on children's playsets) securely to some nearby object.  In 2006, I found out what happens when the rope which is supposed to be securing the ladder snaps halfway down.  In order to avoid this, John (the learned forestry guy and all-around smart person) was given the task; he chose to use that crazy stone structure next to the cistern.  Here he is on his way down:

So pottery is ALMOST done for the season.  Yolanta, the head ceramicist, came to view our material for this season and was pleased.  Here's the setup:

I was supposed to be in charge today.  Snort.

I'm sitting in the lab, in the midst of processing pottery and small finds, with Arnie in the background clanging bits of pottery pieces together (sounds like his own Jewish wedding reception back there) and Rachel quietly counting pieces of painted plaster. 

Two days straight and we are on our last buckets (which is sort of like being on our last leg..).  My favorite part is reassembling the pieces - it is then and only then that I get a real picture of the pottery's use.  There is the whole jigsaw-puzzle part too and the glee that comes when they fit. 

Today, as we were going through the pottery, Rachel again drew my attention to this weird, salmon-colored piece of pottery.  Her team had uncovered it in the field and had asked if the Byzantines had glaze in hot pink.  When I had originally looked at the piece, it had two ridges like the sherds we find, but the glaze was all wrong.  It looked almost like a plastic coat - glossy and way too consistent.  During pottery washing, someone again asked about the piece.  Our group thought perhaps it wasn't pottery, but metal.  So finally, when Rachel brought up the piece during processing, I looked at it again.  Lead, perhaps?  I asked Arnie to give his opinion as I had never seen anything like this.  It was all wrong.

He takes one look and says, "I know exactly what that is."  Ends up that last year, Michael (second in command for the site) ran over the survey equipment with his truck.  A piece of it flew off into the excavation hole and they couldn't find it. 

Hence our piece.  I'm keeping it as a reminder. 

In other news, John wandered in this afternoon to talk about centipedes.  I slew one the other day (Japanese sushi chef style - lots of chops until all the body pieces stopped running), which prompted a discussion about why I didn't collect it in a bucket and then let it go.  I claimed they were poisonous, but I'm not sure I hold much credibility as I tend to kill all bugs that pass my way.  So John (who actually looks up plants, animals and bugs he doesn't know) looked up the centipedes for the region and came to tell me about them.  Ends up they will bite, have a toxin in their bite and although they probably won't kill, he did find a picture of a guy's hand which looked like it had been blown-up with water. 

This is all to say that there will be no mercy.  Bugs beware. 

I have an ostrich egg.  In my possession.  Right now. 

A few of us made plans to watch the sunset on the rocks by the lab, overlooking the sea and the city of Tiberias.  While we are sitting there, I hear from behind me Arnie say, "Kristina!  You forgot a bucket of pottery to wash!" 

Oh dear, I thought. 

So I turn around and he hands me the bucket.  I was a little hesitant to take it because there had been some talk about bringing down a bit of the centipede I killed.  BUT, instead of a nasty, multi-legged creature, nestled in a plastic bag was my very own, shining ostrich egg. 

 I've been bugging my lab slaves for three weeks now about procuring an egg from the kibbutz pen, but even offering an A+ has garnered no response. 

But now, Sir Arnie, knight of all things impossible, has gotten me my very own ostrich egg.  

Now I've just got to get it through customs.   

Besides being resident nag ("Are you being careful to collect pottery?" - to which one of the seasoned diggers replied "Yes, Mom.") and all-around know-it-all (a role my many sisters never quite allowed me to play growing up), I continued working in the square with the Hole of Doom.   

Our initial goal was to try to level out the square.  Rule #1 of archaeology - you aren't digging a hole, no matter how much dirt you move.  Rather, you are excavating, trying to peel back those layers one by one to see what interesting things await.  So this meant that before any of the tumble overtop the darkness of the cistern could be removed, we needed to bring down the dirt on either side.    

So we dug.

And we dug somemore.

This is by far the less glamorous side of archaeology - especially when you know that something exciting is awaiting you.  The great thing of just digging, however, is that you get into a rhythm of some sorts, among the picking, the shoveling and the passing of buckets.  The pick-ax remains a favorite of mine as every swing at a rock becomes a swing against a worry/problem in life.  Oh, the satisfaction in knocking that stupid, stubborn rock out of its once firm foothold! 

Finally, at some point, we dug down enough so that there was some eveness across, Jim called for a change of pace.  We gathered around the general area of the cistern and discussed our game plan.  The problem with our cistern is that because we could not quite define where its borders were, someone could accidentally step into the hole OR if we removed just the right rock, the entire tumble would collapse down (more rocks to remove in the future).  Brennan described it as a giant game of pick-up sticks, where the goal is to remove one stick at a time from a jumble without making any of the others move. 

The process was that one by one we would identify rocks that needed to go.  One person would lean over the jumble to remove the rock, with two people holding on to the person's belt.  Brennan went first, with Jim and I hanging on to his middle with feet firmly planted.  At one point, John and Dr. Schuler had to grab onto the giant rocks on their side, while Brennan went in for the one in the middle.  

The end result was that we got all the tumbled removed, defined the top of the cistern and only lost one rock down into the hole.  The bottom of the cistern was now visible, so a measurement could be taken of its depth.  At 16 feet deep, it is easily the largest cistern to our little church complex.    

After that excitement, Jim began turrheaing around the hole - carefully as we weren't sure what else was in the space between the cistern and the wall.  Yesterday, we found a RIDICULOUS amount of ceramics from this little region.  Here's a picture of the mass hanging up (I could barely lift the bag - it is bigger than my torso and easily weighs 50 pounds):

Today's digging revealed that most of the ceramic in the bag above is from a drainage pipe that fed the water supply of the cistern.  I'm thinking about having one of my lab slaves try to reassemble this impossible jigsaw puzzle (should be easier than getting one of the kibbutz ostrich eggs for me). 

Anyway, lest you think that the excitement of the day was over after dangling people over the hole of the cistern, guess again.  John and I were turrhea-ing west of the cistern (along the edge that faces the open room) and I noticed an unnatural bend to a stone at my feet.  A shower of dirt later and I found what originally looked like an enormous stone grinding bowl (an observation Dr. Schuler made as he walked by).

But by the end of the day, John and I, shovels, fingers and trowels in hand, still hadn't reached the bottom of the carved stone - it is all one piece, as far as we can tell and has begun to slope towards the cistern:

I did find a coin (super exciting) which means that we will sift the rest of the contents of this smaller hole tomorrow.

For this afternoon, however, my team and I are going to concentrate on getting the pottery in order for Jolanta's comments next week.  As someone recently remarked, it's like we are catching up on 1500 years of cleaning dishes that someone left in the sink, "only cool and not at all like chores." 

I'm certainly amused.  

Because it has yet to cease amusing me, enjoy the following picture taken outside our guest house in Jerusalem:

I love my job.

Several times over the course of these past weeks, I have been tempted to say those four words with a certain amount of chagrin, sarcasm, bemusement...

Today, however, I love my job in the fullest sense of the word. 

I love my job.

For the last two days, I have been working with Jim Rogers, Brennan and Arnie southeast of the church.  Our goal was to find the continuation of a wall, which we began to uncover yesterday.

Today I look over and see Brennan playing with a hole in the ground.  Now, at the beginning of the season, Michael (Number Two for the entire hill) said, "In past years I have spoken about the snake problem and have said not to worry - they are more afraid of you than you are of them.  This is no longer the case.  The snakes are now very aggresive and should be avoided."  Imagine my surprise then when I look over a little later and Brennan's HAND is in the hole.  He says, "There are some good pieces of pottery in there."  Although I am not one to stand in the way of pottery, I did remind him of snakes, animals, too many alien movies, etc. 

Well, after breakfast, I left the square to go over to the inscription with Andrea to see if we could make a dry rubbing of it.  Having found no twelve-year-old child from whom I could steal crayons, we tried to make the rubbing with the edge of a pencil.  It didn't work, unfortunately, but Dr. Schuler now has a pretty bizare picture to hang up on his refrigerator. 

Anyway, I returned to my square to hear Brennan say that the hole went pretty deep.  By now the square was calling it a cistern (a plastered hole in the ground used to catch and retain water).  Brennan dropped a rock into the hole and there was a DEFINITE gap in time before we heard it clunk at the bottom.  Arnie had the idea to tie a rock to the end of a rope and then hang it down until we reached bottom.

It ends up the cistern is about 4.5 meters deep (Four of Andrea, for those who know her height).  We swung the rock from side to side and originally thought that it was bottlenecked at the top and expanded at the bottom. 

So I began digging around.  Imagine my surprise when about 30 centimeters away from where I thought was the opening, dirt started falling down, down, down.  At this point, I backed up to re-assess the situation.  Linda suggested clearing around a bit with the broom to try and pick out the stones and weak areas. 

Ends up that the cistern top is huge, to the point that to remove the dirt from the other side against the wall, I had to sort of a Cirque de Solei splits over top the hole, with either leg bracing agains the side of the hole and me bending and stretching to remove dirt from the other side (No cameras were present (thank goodness), though the comments from the back (thanks a lot, Andrea) were aplenty - at least I learned the reaches of my new-found flexibility).  Many big rocks were still jumbled over top, but I was afraid that once we removed the perfect one, the rest would collapse. 

So Linda and I continued picking around the entrance, until I came across a BEAUTIFUL, ENORMOUS handle of some sort of smooth storage jar, with many, thick pieces of the body still intact.  That can be the find of the season for myself.  Let others have the jewelry, the gold, the nails - I am quite content with a beautiful and unique piece of pottery.

Before we left for the day, we strung security tape around the walls and hole.  The hole still is pretty hidden under the tumble of rocks, so the worry is that some silly tourist is going to leap on top and fall on down.  I'm hoping the security tape provides some hinderance rather than an incentive to gaze closer.  We'll see.

The other option is to stick one of the undergraduates down the hole and see if we can catch the lynx-like creature that has been haunting our site at night, leaving droppings and footprints all around.  I have at least two students working for me, so I could offer them the option of going down in the cistern overnight and getting an A.  The other offer I have made to them is that if they steal an ostrich egg for me from the pen on the kibbutz, I would be more than happy to give an A+.  Otherwise they can just continue working hard and we'll see where the grades fall. 

All in all, exciting day.  I love my job.