Seventy Percent

It is finally time for me to throw in the towel over this metal box.  Censor or popcorn maker, I really do not know.  Sometimes in archaeology, research and hard work simply do not yield the expected results.  It's up to Dr. Schuler and his CSP gurus now.    

However, this season has certainly provided valuable insight for this budding archaeologist.  Although at the beginning I felt a bit like a duck robbed of water, the assignments thrust towards me provided a similar thrill as I raced around the classics library, pulling books and flipping through pages.  I missed the sheer physical exhaustion of the dig, but the mental tasks stretched my research skills and provided new challenges.  And I now have the chance to write a final report on the lion pendant (thus filling out my CV).  So thank you, team, and thank you, Dr. Schuler, for providing me with this opportunity.  It was a joy.

On another note, the actual archaeological experience is worth every minute, dollar and bead of sweat.  I highly recommend that those interested in pursuing such an adventure contact Dr. Schuler at mark.schuler@csp.edu.  If you plan ahead, there are certain scholarships available through the Biblical Archaeology Society (http://www.findadig.com/) which can ease the financial obligation.  Feel free to contact me as well (Kristina.Neumann@cuw.edu).

And now, it is back to Ph.D. work - languages upon languages, facts upon facts.  I'm pretty sure that is what Indiana Jones did for the majority of his year (have you ever noticed that the majority of the movies take place during the summer?), so it will have to do for me as well.

Salve et Vale. 

Kristina Neumann      

Well, things have started to get desperate on my end today - day five (?) of my search on the mysterious box discovered by Darryl.

I actually went on websites where they are SELLING Byzantine objects (yes, the trade is open and thriving) to see if ANYTHING matches up (for those interested, a glass icon similar to the one found on the dig is going for around $9,000.00).  Now, archaeology is all about context: context in the soil, in the layers and in the artifacts around it.  Once an item is removed from its historical context, we lose a great deal of information.  In fact, in researching incense shovels (what we originally thought the metal box was), I discovered that only a few have actually been found "in situ" (literally: in place - in the dirt, at its correct level); the vast majority have been bought through the antiquities market. 

Alas - still no luck.

And my return back to the stacks has yielded nothing either.  I keep expecting something to jump out: an image, a keyword I'm overlooking, something...  

So, to amuse myself, I am thinking of all the "other" things it could be.  A friend suggested a bed-warmer, like the ones used throughout the 19^th century.  Certainly the monks from our church had to stay warm somehow!

Any other suggestions?  Send them to Kristina.Neumann@cuw.edu.  I promise to send a case of the best Cincinnati beer or carton of our famous ice cream to whomever yields actual results!

Well, I'm stumped about this find of Darryl's:

This declaration comes after another afternoon spent in the library, searching through excavation reports and museum catalogs.  My toes are now cold, my eyes have gone fuzzy and I have a concert to get ready for tonight (the joys of staying in the city during the summer).   

However, I can officially say that the find WAS NOT an incense shovel (see yesterday's post), as it simply lacks many of the defining features of such an object.  For example, NEC's has four sides, while ALL other shovels have only three (better to scoop with).  NEC's is too deep (3.7 cm) and lacks solid sides. 

In my research, I did come across a Byzantine example of an incense shovel.  It is so ridiculous looking, I thought it worth sharing with you, dear reader:

Clearly, NEC's find looks nothing like this shovel.  Nevertheless, there is a certain lack of finesse that joins these two objects and I am willing to hazard a guess that NEC's "find" is from the Byzantine period and not earlier.     

But what are our other options?  Dr. Schuler and I are now leaning towards some sort of burner: the holes in the side could have provided air to reach the coals with incense lying over top.  The handle is also mostly hollow, which would have allowed somebody to pick the object up without burning their hands.    

Now, how I am going to prove this hypothesis reveals many complications.  With my last assignment, I had specific phrases that I could call the pendant/amulet, thereby narrowing my search.  This time, I do not know WHAT to call this artifact (Brazier? Censer? Lamp? Incense burner?), which translates into flipping through as many books as possible (the library staff is going nuts with the amount of material I am pulling from the shelves - oh well, it gives them a little exercise).  An archaeologist's worst nightmare, indeed.      

Finally, and I should probably have mentioned this sooner, but anybody who has questions, queries, comments or other items of note, feel free to send them to my email address (Kristina.Neumann@cuw.edu) and I will be happy to answer as best I can. 

In the meantime, phoey.   

I am in a bit of a quandary.  Yesterday Dr. Schuler sent me my second assignment:

So what do you think it looks like?  Dr. Schuler suggested an incense shovel, like the ones below:

As implied in the name, this particular tool could have been used as "snuff dishes" for cleaning up burned wicks from lamps or incense holders in temples or churches.  Now, to our archaeologists digging up little beyond pot sherds and pieces of bones, this certainly is an impressive find.  However, apparently these types of rectangular incense shovels are relatively common - especially since they appear as early as the eight century BC! 

But take another look at NEC'S compared to one of the real incense shovels:

Notice that NEC's "shovel" has all four sides, while all the other shovels are missing one edge for scooping.  Furthermore, these shovels are more commonly related to pagan cults and Judaism - but at least one was found with a cross engraving.  I also cannot see what the sides of these shovels look like - if they are open as NEC's is or if they are closed.  Also, is the shovel as deep as NEC'S?  Too many questions exist to make a definitive identification.      

So, after searching through the entire "bronze" section in the library, wading through archaeological reports and sifting through countless books on Byzantium, I feel about as satisfied as a day on the dig with no finds. 

So, when you read the blogs this week, you will probably notice one common element:

Exhaustion.

Normally on the dig, the first week is full of wonder and the second sated with familiarity, but the third week is brutal.  Muscles ache, clothes are irreparably soiled, the heat is annoying, the work is tedious....you get the picture. 

This week of dig doldrums was not an issue my first year, as we students were evacuated immediately following the second week.  However, last year was a full season for me and I remember the frustrations of this time (and so do the poor souls who worked on the road with me).  Indeed, diggers should prepare themselves for a week of "Cabin Fever," which, according to the dictionary, is defined as "boredom, restlessness, or irritability that results from a lack of environmental stimulation, as from a prolonged stay in a remote, sparsely populated region or a confined indoor area."

Sure, the diggers are in one of the world's most fascinating places, taking part in an adventure most only dream about, but their time is spent in a dusty hole, with little activity beyond dirt, pottery sherds and the random bug.  Cabin Fever indeed. 

As such, here are a few suggestions to my fellow diggers of ways to relieve the monotony:

1. Buy a container of Israeli peanut butter and feed it to a random kibbutz dog - you will provide amusement for yourself while giving the dog the thrill of its lifetime.
2. If and when a bug manifests itself (centipede, spider, scorpion or otherwise), vent your frustration by smashing it into an infinite number of pieces with your turreah.  You will thereby earn the appreciation of at least this entomophobiac, while creating the right conditions for the game "Find the Body Part."   
3. Line up six empty buckets on the Roman road going past the excavation site and take turns rolling rocks into them.  First person to knock down all the buckets wins.
4. Practice doing headstands on the columns.  You will not only create a picture-worthy opportunity, but the rush of blood to your head will result in a feeling of euphoria.   
5. For the veteran diggers, hide random pieces of "junk" in the dirt and watch as the newbies go wild over their find.
6. Newbies, upon any find, construct evermore elaborate hypotheses of how said object arrived in the dirt.  The best storyteller receives a beer courtesy of the square, but whoever incorporates Bigfoot or a Canadian into the story gets a beer AND a milkshake.
7. In the morning, once up the hill, walk backwards to the dig site.  This little challenge will puzzle the other excavators (while reinforcing opinions of those crazy Americans) and provide you with a change in routine. 
8. Collect all the sand that now covers your bedroom, and with an ingenious application of flour and water, create a sand-art picture to hang up in the lab (or even better, give it to Dr. Schuler saying you spent all your free time trying to create something extra special for him - 10 points if you can do this without laughing). 
9. Speaking of sand, build a sandcastle using all the excavation tools from your pack (see number seven on "crazy Americans").
10. Finally, keep on reminding yourself that you are in the midst of a great adventure, one which will forever be imprinted on your life. 

Enjoy!

For those interested in another perspective on the tablet I recently discussed, check out this article:  http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=16576

Well, tomorrow marks the Canadians' last digging day.  With such a departure pending, I have assembled a list of things that MUST BE ACCOMPLISHED before the Canadians are allowed to leave (I look to the CSP students to enforce the following items):

1. An Inuk-Shuck, or whatever the Canadians call the idol made out of stacked stones, should be built up on the site in order to ensure snow or at least some sort of precipitation occurs for the team left on the dig.

2. The Holy Grail, or some equally exciting find, should be uncovered by the very lucky Canadians in order to provide this library-bound graduate student something to research.

3. A round of beers, or some equally satisfying beverage, should be bought for the team in order to provide the remaining members one final chance to hear such "Canadianisms" as "You Hoser" and the heavily-accented "Out and About in a Boat."     

4. Any remaining Canadian snacks (like the very strange fruit-leather bars) should be donated to the remaining team in order to provide digging-strength equivalent to that of a Mountie. 

5. All should gather round the departing bus tomorrow to sing "O Canada" to the departing, hard-working, inexplicably-pleasant Canadians.      

See you soon back here in North America! 

There seems to be a bit of a lull in interesting artifacts for me to investigate. 

So, with my usefulness to the dig temporarily suspended, I thought it fitting to use this space to discuss a "recent" archaeological find.  Were I on the dig, this would be proper subject matter for the hours of pottery washing in the evening.  Enough scholars would be gathered in one place to comment on the find and also to lead me to greater understanding.  Alas.  I will have to throw this out to you, dear reader, and hope for your kind comments:

According to Sunday's New York Times, a three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew, dated late 1^st century BC, may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days (read the full article here: NYTimes.doc). 

So far, so good - right? 

Wrong.  The article states, "If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time."

Uh, and...? 

Let me explain.  A professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem (Dr. Israel Knohl) believes this particular tablet validates his thesis that the resurrection "story" in the New Testament was simply that: an earlier Jewish motif adopted by Jesus and his followers.  Now, thankfully, the article does point out the caution of many of Dr. Knohl's colleagues in ascribing too much to the text.  First of all, the messianic character included is not mentioned by name (Dr. Knohl believes it to be a martyr named Simon).  Second, as pointed out by his colleague (Dr. Moshe Bar-Asher), "In crucial places of the text there is a lack of text."  Translation: Dr. Knohl has read into the text what he wants to read. 

Now, as pointed out over and over by one of my language professors this year, "You must LOOK AT THE TEXT FIRST and then decide what it says - not the other way around."  It is the same with archaeology.  Many of the original Biblical archaeologists went to the Middle East already knowing what they would find (which resulted in their own embarrassment and the seeming "foolishness" of Christian archaeologists).  On Dr. Schuler's excavation, we dig first and then, based on the evidence, we give a reasonable hypothesis as to what it is.  Dr. Knohl's methodology violated this absolute.     

But back to my original beef with the article.  The article and Dr. Knohl state this discovery of the tablet will shake Christianity because of its debunking of the uniqueness of its resurrection doctrine.  Maybe I've missed something, but have we as Christians ever claimed that we are the only ones who talk about resurrection? 

I call your attention to the Persephone myth from ancient Greece, where a maiden was stolen from her mother Demeter and taken to the Underworld to be with the god Hades.  With some finagling by the other gods, Persephone is returned to her mother (of course, with conditions).  Tah dah: a veritable resurrection story. 

But let us look to the Old Testament - the canon of the Jewish religion.  There too we see hints and suggestions of resurrection.  Take Daniel 12:2: "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt" (I leave it to my friend, the Hebrew scholar, to comment).  Elsewhere, we hear of dry bones coming to life (Ezekiel 37).  And though the Sadducees denied the resurrection, the writings of the Pharisees support it.

Now, Knohl wants to make a big deal out of the three-day element of resurrection.  Looking beyond the afore-mentioned textual issues, the appearance of this "three-days" still is not a problem to Christianity.  Going to a basic scholarly source (Dictionary of Jesus and Gospels), "the third-day theme may reflect Hosea 6:2 ("on the third day he will raise us"), a more general allusion to the OT theme of the third day as a day of deliverance (cf. Gen. 22:4, 42:17-18; Is. 2:16; Jon 2:1), or more simply a reference on Jesus' part to a brief period of time."         

The main point is that of course there are common, traditional themes running through all religions.  In January, I came across an anthropological discussion of the "savior child" or "child of destiny" - a child born to rescue a people.  This author discussed all the similar elements between the stories of Moses, Aeneas, Perseus, Romulus and Remus, Jesus and Oedipus, finally concluding that these accounts "must be seen as popular expressions of some universal human need or experience, occurring independently in times and places that are worlds apart." 

Basically, the author states that because one account isn't unique (the story of Jesus), it cannot be true.  The gaps in his logic should be obvious, but this is more or less what Dr. Knohl is arguing.  Yet despite the obvious afore-mentioned problems with his textual analysis, it shouldn't BE bothersome if indeed a text appears talking about a resurrection in three days.  Just as God can shock us by doing something completely unexpected, he is equally able to work within tradition.  The account of Jesus can have similar elements with tradition, without being relegated to the category of myth.    

Let's go philosophical for a moment.  The definition of a miracle is an interference into nature by a higher supernatural power.  This interference is not necessarily a violation of the laws of nature, but working through them.  For example, God (the supernatural power) interfered with Mary when she became pregnant as a virgin; however, at some point the natural means took over and the Child was born naturally. 

Likewise, there can be a tradition of resurrection, without devaluing the very real and true resurrection of Christ on the third day.  Dr. Knohl will have to search a bit deeper if he indeed hopes to "shake" Christianity.  Doubt not the artifact, but the scholar who interprets it based on his own preconceived notions.          

At last, I have an assignment. 

Dear reader, you may recall that a few days ago, a pendant printed with a lion was recovered from the destruction fill in square D5.  It is about the size of nickel and made of amber-colored glass pressed with some sort of stamp (similar to casting coins - notice how the extra glass ballooned past the edges of the design).  A glass loop on the top allowed it to be worn as a necklace. 

This certainly is an exiting find, but unless an archaeologist is very familiar with such an object, only so much identification can occur on the dig site. 

This is where one lonely, dirt-longing graduate student steps in.  On Tuesday, Dr. Schuler sent me a picture of the pendant, along with his cursory notes and these questions:

What can you find about such amulets?

Date?

Distribution?

Manufacture?

Thus began my own treasure hunt, several thousand miles away.  Instead of sifting through dirt, I struggled through an enormous library catalog, attempting to create the right combination of key words to "unearth" the correct book or article.  For the lion pendant, this meant searching through encyclopedias of Holy Land archaeology, collections of ancient glass, lists of early Christian antiquities and excavation reports.  Once I figured out that stamped glass pendants appear frequently, it was only a mater of time before I found something similar to the NEC find.         

As luck would have it, this sort of lion-pendant is common enough to show up in...drum roll please....FOUR of the forty or so books I looked through.  I admit to a certain amount of thrill to this type of investigation, because just as on the dig, after wading through a load of irrelevant dirt, the most astounding discoveries appear.  Geek that I am, my heart jumped out of its cavity when I turned a page in "Roman, Byzantine, and Early Medieval Glass" and saw two yellow lion "pendant stamped medallions" smiling back at me:

You'll notice, however, that this lion doesn't quite match up with the one discovered at NEC.  Furthermore, there wasn't a lot of extra information given for this pendant, such as where it was found, how it was made and where it was discovered besides "Eastern Mediterranean." 

This meant that I had to look at the footnotes of the article, and drag up another excavation report.  Here, in a listing of a 4^th century tomb at Tarshiha (northern Israel) discovered in 1933, I found this picture:

Now, this one is MUCH closer stylistically to the one found at NEC and I found out that a necklace could be strung with multiple pendants (be careful when you dig, team!) - still, not a lot of information about these types of pendants in general.  So, the search continued, and in the most random book, "Roman Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass," I discovered 15 different lion pendants AND a whole section about them in general.  Here is what I found:

Many pendants, like the one found at NEC, bear images of gods or apotropaic symbols (that means something frightening to ward off something even more frightening) to be worn either to bring good fortune or to scare away evil.  Almost all of these pendants come from the east of the Roman Empire, with a special concentration in the Syro-Palestinian region - that would be right where Hippos/Sussita is. 

Now, there is a scholar by the name of Barag who has done extensive research into this type of glass and divides how the pendant was made into three types and what it was stamped with into six categories.  According to Barag's findings, OUR pendant was made between 350 and 425 AD, and is considered a Type A, Category 5.  This means that it was fashioned with a flat loop for hanging and was stamped VERY carefully with the image of an animal.  Other images, for those curious, include classical themes (Medusa's head), biblical pictures (Daniel in the Lion's den), Jewish symbols (menorah) and Christian symbols (Good shepherd). 

The lion, however, was a VERY popular apotropaic symbol.  Here's an example:

On some of these pendants, words were added like, "EICΘEOC," which means "One God."

Our pendant doesn't match any of these exactly, but is close enough to determine the above information.  For example, compare the two manes of the following (NEC's is first, the one from the book is second): 

Notice how the mane hair is separate from the head.  Also compare the feet and the mouth.   

Anyway, here it is again: the rush of the find.  The "Ah hah" moment.  The reminder of why in the world I ever was interested in this.

And no bugs died in the process.