June 2008 Archives

Hi everyone.  The beginning of the day here in Israel was the same more or less as yesterday.  We remembered all of our gear:  hats, water, dig bags etc...  The bags were lighter today because we knew just what was needed and what was extra.  Carl is carrying the 4th bag with snacks, medicine, and water bottles for the first 2 1/2 weeks and I will carry it the second 2 1/2 weeks when he returns home. 

Anyway, back to the digging part. 
Again today we had a reprieve in the weather department.  There was cloud cover until at least 10:00 AM.  As you know we only work until 12:00 noon, so it seemed cooler.  We work under sunscreens and that helps too.

Everyone in the Simmons and Walker family discovered something today.  Daniel uncovered a pilaster corner, Carl came across a column and Tina worked the first half of the day on "discovering" the edge of the blanket covering the mosaic. 

Daniel was working in the same area he left yesterday.  He was pulling dirt away from a very large boulder and noticed a pattern on the northeastern edge of it.  Along came the Israeli man in charge of the breakfast and Daniel volunteered to help get breakfast set up.  (One American must volunteer every day)   During the time Daniel was helping, the group went ahead and finished unearthing the "monster".  Two guys ( Andy, our pastor's son and Quinn) moved it to the northeast corner of the church.  Dr. Schuler congratulated Daniel saying, "That is quite a find". 

Carl was digging in his area that is nicknamed the "jacuzzi.  It really looks like a giant pit to me.  He was working hard as usual and found something rounded.  After conferring with another "jacuzzi-mate" it was determined that he had something.  It turned out to be a column.  The column is 54 cm. in diameter.  It is safe to say that the height would have been approx. 10 times the diameter, making it originally 540 decimeters or 54 meters high., (or something like that I'm losing track, but it seems very big). According to Dr. Schuler they can now NOT expect to find a mosaic floor because there is a column in the room.  The column was in an unlikely area on the west wall however, of the "jacuzzi".so they might find just about anything.  A column in the jacuzzi, what were those people thinking? 

Some of the highlights from today were...

Another team found a glass amulet with what appears to be a lion on it.  It is about the size of a nickel I think.  I have not seen it.  It was near the surface area, but the Israeli young lady working with the University of Haifa, said it was definitely Byzantine and she had seen them before in the museum.   The piece was in the wrong area, meaning it should have been found in a week after digging.  It is hypothesized that it may have been unearthed by an earth mover as the Israeli army was fortifying the area in the 60's.

In the mosaic area, we were working with a Polish woman named Eva.  She is the conservator for the Israeli government.  She is here to help stabilize the mosaic and preserve it.  (Daniel could not understand why we would preserve the mosaic and then cover it back up with dirt.  The church is located at the top of an isolated hill in a National Park.  Though it is protected by law, there is no supervision.  The mosaic would not last long if it were obvious to visitors.  I got my first look at part of the mosaic on the northern side of the room.  The room in which we are working is about 5 meters square.  The mosaic is absolutely beautiful.  It has red and black Christian crosses in it.  It's funny, the men that found it in 2005 are here on site, but not interested in the tedious work of reconstructing it and preserving it.  They are on to more labor intensive stuff using pick axes and building muscles and such. 

Other stuff.  There is nothing scary, worrisome, or anything for that matter that would cause concern or alarm here at the kibbutz.  As a matter of fact I can't figure out what is with the dogs here.  They seem to belong to everyone.  No one pays them any mind and they just walk about in the community as they please.  This would be a wonderful place to raise children.  The sense of community is unlike anything I have ever seen.  The pace is slow.  The people have just what they need and there is no materialism or competition that I can see.  It seems to be all about "living" and not about "having".  

Oh yeah we have tie-wrapped the legs of 3 twin beds in order to make one super-sized king size bed in our room.  Also, this place (our room) has great air conditioning.

Love to all....<3 <3 <3

   
OH my goodness.  You might think it is difficult getting on a bus at 4:50 AM.  Or maybe it's difficult to work for 3 hours until breakfast.  Or maybe cucumbers and tomatoes or fish for breakfast is difficult to imagine.  (The breakfast was super by the way).  Being here has to rank up in the very tippy-top amazing things I've ever done. 

Our day went something like this...
We woke up around 3:30 AM (amazingly refreshed) and got dressed for work.  Long pants, t-shirts, boots, wool socks, hats and plenty of sunscreen.  We ate Tiger's Milk bars on the way up the hill in the bus.  It takes about 20 min. to get there. 

We were asked not to work with friends, so we  figured that meant family members too.  Tina began pulling weeds on the western entrance to the main room of the Northeast church.  This is the room that has the chancel screen (the precursor to the altar rail we have in modern churches now.  It seemed important to Dr. Schuler that the weeds disappear.  I guess my careful attention to the weeds got me a job with Nancy working on the mosaic in the northern corner of the church.  Our job is to remove all of the dirt that was dumped upon a felt-type material (an old blanket most probably) all the way back to the hidden mosaic that was worked on in 2005, I believe.  I found my first "tessera".  A very obvious tiny square of rock used to create the mosaic.  It was obvious to me that it was different from all of the other   "stuff" being thrown in the buckets.   The fate of the  bucket stuff, being lifted about 5 feet in the air and taken to the edge of the abyss and heaved into oblivion.
Meanwhile...our sweet Daniel was working on the other side of the area from me with about 5 other adults.  They were beginning at the ground level and their goal is to look on the other side of our wall to see what they can see.  (Sounds like a song I've heard).  He did really well until the last 2 hours or so.  I guess swinging a pick axe and turreah (something like a very heavy hoe, can really take it out of you, if you are an enthusiastic 15 year old.  He will have  to pace himself or learn to pace himself :))

And at the same time...Carl worked on moving tools and equipment from storage to the work areas. The storage building was an Israeli Garrison between the 1940's and 1967. (after the equipment was removed it became our breakfast hall) The equipment included shade covers. Quite a puzzle to get the pieces together and somewhat level on uneven ground. Did I say 'uneven'? Two legs were on a cleared 'road', one leg on the upper part of a slope, the last  on the  lower.
After this we cleared weeds on top of, or around the areas to be worked. Later we'll post a picture of the thorns on these weeds. The areas were then staked and the digging began. Rock, rock, ROCK! dirt, scorpion. Actually, my group found about a half dozen small scorpions. None of the scorpions found us! We also found a piece of a decoration off of a column, possibly a capital. The decoration is called an acanthus leaf or something like it.
We found a tooth and lots of pottery shards. It appears that we have already located a wall under all this! Others found a  coin, still others found bones.
Dr. Schuler is very excited about the progress of the team (32 American and Canadian volunteers) for the first day. 

Highlights and other obscure stuff...
The lemonade mentioned in the title was at the lunch provided by the kibbutz for us after we got off/crawled off of the bus.  We all have very grey /black silt on our arms, faces ...etc.  The Israeli people are so nice here, but when we get off the bus they do point us in a separate direction for lunch in the dining hall.  We are yucky!  Tina brought a cheap pair of kneepads, (foam with elastic) and they don't look like they will last for the first week.  The Sea of Galilee is rough in the afternoon, however Carl and Tina will brave it today in order to get the dark layer of dirt off of their skin.  We have "church" at 6:00 PM, dinner at 6:30 and then ZZZZZ's .  And Oh yeah, the Israelis don't flush the paper.  I guess I'll leave you with that thought.

 

Hi, just a quick note before the first day of digging.

Anyone trying to reach me on aol will have to use Carl's email for now.  You can contact me and Dan (and Carl of course) at charcarl@wildblue.net  Hope to hear from you soon! 

This is Carl speaking (uh- writing).

We saw the site up close this morning. We will be working on the North-east church. Dr. Schuler gave us the tour of what has already been done and what he hopes to excavate this time. Side note, to me, excavate means using a backhoe and other tractors. Here, excavate means using trowels and buckets, maybe a shovel or two. Big items (rocks) will be rolled onto a cargo net and carried out by hand!

The first day will be clearing all the weeds and debris that has collected over the past year. Then we will work in groups in four areas. One group will be excavating a road that passes behind the church. The roads were only about 2 meters wide, no cars!!!.

Another area is to the west of the church that appears to marked as important as it has a Roman triple column arch at the entrance. There appears to be a room behind the entrance that will be a third groups area.

The fourth will continue work on the mosaic found previously.

After our orientation, we toured the North end of the Sea of Galilee. 

On our tour we saw:

1.  Kursi, an area commemorating the casting of the demons into the swines.  At this location was an early Christian monastary and nearby a bathhouse that supplied income for the monks to run it.

2.  Capernaum, St. Peter's house and a Synagogue that Jesus taught from.

3.  Tabgha, a church commemorating the feeding of the 5,000.  It was filled with mosaic and so beautiful. 

4.  The church of the Beatitudes, a modern church run by the nuns.

In all of the holy places today, there were large crowds.  Dr. Schuler mentioned that in this past May, there were more pilgrims to the Holy Lands than ever recorded in Israel.  It is the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel this year.

We returned to the kibbutz around 4:00.  After a meeting most of the "diggers" went to the local "Fish Restaurant".  Carl and I had a St. Peter's fish.  It was fried whole. 

We've had a wonderful day adjusting to the climate and the time difference.  It's work tomorrow!  We'll leave at 4:40 AM to ride the bus and get started.  It's thrilling and encouraging to hear return workers comment on how much is done.  Good night,
Tina and Carl  ...Dan says "hi", too.

Wow!  What a trip to Israel.  The first part of the journey was a piece of cake.  3 1/2 hours to Houston, a layover for a few hours, another 3 2/3 hour trip to New Jersey and a few hours layover.  It seemed so easy.  The trip over the Atlantic and the Mediterranian however didn't have any layovers :(  By the time we arrived we were goofy from having no sleep and my legs didn't work anymore.  It was all about swollen ankles and sore backs from sitting.  It wasn't a trip for sissys.  (Next time??, we travel to New Jersey a day or two ahead of time).  Customs was a breeze, no one was the slightest bit interested in us after we had our passports stamped with our visas.  We changed a little over 1/2 of our American dollars into New Israeli Shekles.  We rode the bus up from Tel Aviv to En Giv, a kibbutz about 2 1/2 hours north of the airport.  The bus was wonderfully air conditioned, but we were too excited to get any rest.  Believe it or not, the countryside looks like California.  I've been told that before, but it really does!!!  The countryside is like California, but the weather is like Mississippi.  What a combination.  The Sea of Gallilee is beautiful.  Carl and I put our feet in it yesterday and you know that Daniel and Andy (our Pastor's son) went swimming right away.  We crossed over the River Jordon on our way to En Giv.  It is a good thing we were warned ahead of time about the size of the Jordon.  In some places, you could jump from one side to the other.  Really it reminded me of the river we canoed on in Mississippi.  It's funny, as Americans we tend to think of the Holy Lands as something frozen in time.  People live here and work here and play here.  The Jordon has canoers on it.  The Sea of Galillee has wind surfers and jet skiis on it.  

Some high points of the day... We ate a communal dinner in the dining hall at 6:30 PM with most of the members of the kibbutz.  A young man at the airport started talking to me in (I don't know what language) thinking I was an Israeli woman.  He was as surprised as I was!

Wow, Dr. Schuler is right .....that list just gets longer and longer.  It's 11:34 PM on Tuesday and we are packing and weighing and packing and reweighing.  It is our goal to take only 3 suitcases at 50# each.  It sounds doable.  Oh my goodness, mine was 56 pounds and still shut.  It looks like Carl is carrying a gigantic, overstuffed panda bear and not a carry-on filled with snacks and provisions to last us for the month of breakfasts at 4:00 AM.  We hear we get a breakfast supplied by the Kibbutz at approx. 8:00 each morning.  That's after 3 1/2 hours of work, so the "food bag" weighs 34 pounds.  That's 34 pounds of snack bars, tuna fish and crackers, nuts and dried fruit, and tomato soup.  We won't go hungry, but Carl is worried that Continental Airlines will think we are selling food on the flight.  Hmmm???  God bless all of you family and friends...we're ready to go and only 9 things to finish on the list by 9:00 tomorrow.  Night, night! ;o 

Hi everyone.  We are in the countdown now.  We have VBS this week and it's crazy trying to get ready for a month away from home.  Daniel is about 1/2 finished with his independent study class on world History.  Tina is actually applying for a different job in the school district and interviewing, and Carl is on call :)) I have faith that all will come together and we'll be on our way, but it sure doesn't look like it right now.  We are excited to say the least.

We are still in the process of getting ready for the big trip.  We have about one half of the supplies gathered.  Of special interest is the appropriate clothing for the Holy Sites.  We certainly don't want to offend anyone and would like to try not to stick out like a sore thumb.  We need to pack our backpacks for the dig site.  We really are getting excited!  We can't wait to meet all of the others that will be working on the dig.