July 2008 Archives

Well tomorrow is the LAST DAY of digging! We still have sweeping and pictures on thursday... Ahhh! I am excited because I'm ready to go home, but I'm also sad to be leaving because I've had a blast!! The D team had a little fun with Schuler yesterday morning. I made signs that said "Will work for beer" because it's been a running joke the whole dig season. Mine said "Even Me" because I'm underage in the US and Schuler keeps pointing that out, but I keep pointing out that I'm legal here :) So enjoy these pictures

Well we are in the final week with only 2 more actual digging day, and 1 day of sweeping, and 1 of traveling. I honestly cannot wait to get home. I've really enjoyed it here though. I've learned a lot and have done alot, and I've gotten in a little better shape. :)

Jake stayed down at the Kibbutz today because yesterday (not sure what the correct story is) either a wall somewhat collapsed under him and he fell into the square and the rock hit his shin, or the wall collapsed on him and the a decent sized rock hit his shin. Either way he took a fall and a hit...He was pretty sore today, so he stayed down.

We are finally done with D5/C5!! We seem to have to layers of flooring, each earlier than the Byzantine era, so next year they will be digging next to our squares to see where the floor takes them. 

Because we finished with a few days to spare, Dr. Schuler moved the D team over to A99...They have some walls in A0 that we need to see where they go. So, we get to dig over there the next two days. It's not bad. We are higher up so we can feel the breeze blowing around...

My wrists are finally starting to hurt. It could be the way I'm holding them to put dirt in the wheel barrow. I have rather large bruises on my forearms from that. My knees are starting to yell at me too. But that all comes with a month of digging in dirt I guess :)

Yesterday Linda found an almost in tact byzantine oil lamp

....and today they found a baking basin type thing....I try to post pictures of it later.

Enjoy!

All I can say is.....WOW.

I'm going to put up a bunch of pictures, and give a little explanation for each of them. Words can't really describe the City.

Well today was a very exciting day for us in D5!!! As you have probably seen already, and read in the main blog and in Jakes, we found a few significant things today in our square.

First Jake found a small bowl-like thing made out of Basalt...It was probably used for grinding stuff. About 15 mintues later, Jake found another basalt bowl/plate-like thing. We really aren't sure was it was used for, because the top was shallow and sqaure....probably something to put incense in...and that makes sense because then in the last 5 minutes of digging today, Darryl found a bronze incense shovel. It was sooo cool!

Yesterday, we cam across a small water trough. We know it was used for water because it had plaster on it.

Those are sweet words, especially nowadays. After this weekend, almost everyone was a little dehydrated, and it left us with upset stomachs and clammy skin. Schuler made us drink 2 liters of water before pottery washing tonight. I feel a little better, but I'm going to keep drinking water just to make sure :)

Well my finger is doing better...Not too much pain..It kind of looks cool..

I apologize for the lack-of blogging....With the Blog server being down for a bit and our weekend trip to Jordan, I haven't been able to....It's also hard without having my own camera, I have to mooch pictures from other people. It takes some time to get those as well. But alas, I am able to again!

First of all, we said farewell to the lovely group of Canadians this morning. I'm going to miss them, they were really funny and hard workers. Their presence on the dig site will be missed.

Week 2 started off with a bang.

One of the groups found roman walls under the level of the byzantine walls, and today they found a coin!

The group next to us found a couple more walls of the church, two of them are 6 inches apart, so we are trying to figure out why that is...

Then we found another Decumanos in E8, with some nice walls and they found a cistern there too! They are just full of great things in that one.

Our square still has....rocks! we dug out all of our square dug out to the wall. We are taking the whole thing down about another foot to try and find the floor...I dont think we have one, so we are going to try and find the threshold of the blocked doorway we have and dig the floor even with that...

This weekend we had a pretty packed Schedule. I told you about Friday, but on Saturday we went to  Bet She'an and Zippori (Sephorus)

Bet She'an was amazing! here are some pictures:

Jess, Liz and I climbed to the top of the hill, and we were going to take a picture together but the breeze was blowing and so we were feeling it overlooking the city.

And here is a picture of me  kissing a Statue of the Egyptian Governor Ramses III.

At Zippora we saw some amazing mosaics!!!!! Just beautiful! I want to take some back with me and put them in my house!! ha.

Here is just a taste of what we saw:



Well that's all for now! Sorry I haven't been keeping up with my daily blog...My camera is dead :( So I am getting pictures from other people.

Enjoy!
Steph

Well last night I decided to join to tour group going to Gamla and Tel Dan today, instead of hanging around the Kibbutz, and boy am I glad I chose to do that! We got to sleep in until 7:30...which was amazing, but I still woke up at 4:00am...it's funny how your body just gets in that habit. I fell back to sleep quickly though. :)

So we got on a twenty seater bus and made our way to Gamla.

The reserve contains a waterfall, the highest in Israel (Which I did not go see) It's 51 meters high...The archaeological site including remnants of ancient Gamla. And the biggest Griffon Vulture nesting colony in the country...I only hiked down the Ancient trail to see Ancient Gamla...We easily spent 2 hours down there. Here is a little blurb about Gamla from the Brochure thing...

Gamla joined the revolt against the Romans in the year 66CE. Just before th revolt, the residents, led by Josephus Flavius, leader of the revolt in Galilee, hastened to build and fortify the city's walls. The wall was built on the eastern side of the city. It started at the round guard tower on top of the hill, and ended above the Dalyot's riverbed. The easternmost houses of the city and the outer eastern wall of the synagogue of Gamla were made part of the wall. King Agrippa II besieged the rebellious city but was forced to retreat after 7 months. The Romans however, did not give up. Vespasian, who hastened to Judea at the head of three Roman legions and reinforcements, besieged the city once again. 1 month later, the Romans succeeded in breaching the walls for the first time and penetrated Gamla. However, the Jewish defenders succeeded in turning this into a painful and disgraceful defeat and killed most of the Roman Soldiers.

Then we went to Tel Dan. Let me tell you, it is a beautiful place! I can tell why the Danites located there. I'm sure you can look these sites up online and see maps of them. Words and pictures can't quite capture it all. I went to the wading pool..The water was amazingly cold! but it felt good!
Next we went to the Israelite gate..Built of three pairs of pilasters, apparently from the first Temple Period...

Well. I can't upload any more pictures because it's not working. I'll try to edit it tomorrow...If not, you can just look at my pictures on google! they're all there!

But back to my blog! After we visited the Israelite gate, we went to the Canaanite gate. It's from the 18th century BCE, completely intact, with and arched entry, and is one of the oldest complete arches in the world....I got to touch it!!!

Then we went to the "High Place" which is a shrine from the time of the kingdom of Israel, apparently part of a complex built by King Jeroboam son of Nebat (930 BCE)

By that time is was time to head back to the bus, so we missed Pooh Bear's Tree, "Paradise" and the Pistachio lookout. Which I would have loved to go to because I love Pistachios! :)

Well that's all for now.I'll try and put pictures up later

Enjoy

Thank God it's Thursday!! Today was the final day of the first week of the dig. Yay! Things are moving along very very well. We aren't going to Jerusalem for the weekend because of the "terrorist" attack. We aren't sure what it really was, but some dude stole a tractor thing and knocked over a bus and killed 4 people. For our safety, and due to heightened security, Schuler canceled the trip. We were all really disappointed that we couldn't go, but Schuler planned another trip on Saturday to go to ancient sites. Should be pretty fun still...

A bunch of us plan on going to the bar tonight...It's a dinky little place with a pool table..Haven't been there yet. Tomorrow Jess, Christine and I (along with anyone else who decides to go) are going to Tiberias for shopping and stuff. It's right across the Kinneret from the Kibbutz..we'll take a taxi.

 Speaking of the Kibbutz...You would probably like to see it. Here is a picture of it from on top of Sussita..

Well, Darryl owes me a beer.Today he was working on a big rock for a while, and just couldn't get it to budge, and he called me over and said he'd buy me a beer if I got it out. I went over, and pulled it out right away. Talk about shooting down his ego....:) Here is the Rock. ha

I'm starting to get little bruises on my arms and legs. It's from lifting all the big rocks.

Well today we finished digging early today and got a tour of Hippos...We hiked down to one of the other churches that they started, but because it wasn't a Synagogue, they stopped digging. There is a really pretty mosaic under there that they have covered up

Then we hiked over to the South Wall and saw what they had done there. This is the spot where they found the Roman Soldiers footprint. It's under this column because they didn't want it to get ruined.

Happy Fourth of July!

From These Hosers to Y'all

Whereas there are no less than 8 Canadians among the 2008 Hippos-Sussita dig;

And

Whereas July 1^st is a mandatory and statutory holiday;

And

Whereas Canada Day celebrates such goodly and Christian things like: good government, good order, good beer and good hockey;

And

Whereas Canada Day celebrates the creation of the peaceful, true, north strong and free dominion of Canada, member of the British Commonwealth, by the Father's of Confederation, not with musket and bayonet, but with a case of Scotch and an act of British Parliament;

And

Whereas Canadians everywhere, under the authority of our sovereign Queen Elizabeth II, must submit to the laws or the Dominion;

And

Whereas the Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that Canada has been founded "By the rule of law and under the authority of God." Marking it as a nation that serves the will of our creator and Lord;

And

Whereas this good assembly seeks only to serve the will of God;

And

Whereas the Americans among us will be free to celebrate their National Holiday with a day off in Jerusalem;

We the undersigned do humbly request leave for tomorrow in order to celebrate our nation's day, in the traditional manner; beer, lounging around, shopping, singing our national anthem and the most hallowed poking fun at our neighbors to the south.

Jenn Shack

Bill Hayes

Darren Siegle

Quinn

Michael J. Fox

William Shatner

Michael Myers

Jim Carrey

Tim Hurton

Celine Dion

This is good as well:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BRI-A3vakVg&feature=related