On the final day of the 2009 Hippos Susita dig, there were a lot of small things that needed to be done to finish up the site for our two year hiatus. To start off the morning, I was on fence duty. We had to put up a fence around the entire site to ensure that visitors would not hurt themselves or the structure. To do this, we took big steel posts, and used a big post driver to manually slam the posts into the ground. One of the biggest problems, though, is rocks. If you slam that thing down onto a rock, it's not very fun. After that, we tied rope and/or wire to the posts to create the fencing itself. We couldn't finish all of it, as we still had one square, ZZ99, open to clean off their floor. After the fencing, I helped move some big rocks into position asa sort of curb to keep unwary tourists from walking into the deeper holes. A few weeks ago, we uncovered a beautiful marble corinthian capital in one of our squares. But to keep it safe for the next two years, we had to rebury it. After breakfast, we had to cover the floor in ZZ99, which before covering, looked like this:

See? It looks like a 50s diner! We're not sure what the main tiles are made of, but the edges are marble. This was a really nice room in its heyday. Towards the bottom of the picture, you'll notice a hole in the floor. This is a natural cave that has collapsed in on itself. We're not sure, but the way it looks is that they builders didn't know about it when they were building it. Shortly after this, we took a tour of the rest of the site that we didn't see the first day we got here. This was to see the roman soldier's footprint in the plaster, the city wall, the bath house, and the theater they uncovered this year. This also gave Dr. Schuler a chance to photograph everything without us getting in the way. When we got back, we had to cover the floor back up, once again, to keep stupid tourists from taking stuff. The bus came about half an hour early, so we had to do a mad rush to take all our tools back to the IDF building to store them.
The Israeli Parks Authority is the group that technically owns the site. It is they that require us to do a lot of the fencing, stair building, and safety stuff. We'd still do it anyway, but they require us to do it. These jobs are crucial to keeping the site and the visitors safe. Without it, the archaeology would still go on, but visitors would not be allowed. And to be able to go see a site in the process of excavation is really a unique thing. So it is great that we are doing this.
It's really hard to believe that it's been a month in Israel already. With only 20 days of digging, we've done a lot. We've made some awesome finds as well as great architectural features. Once again, this year has brought up more questions than answers. We'll have to see what we find in to years to try to answer those questions. Whether I'll be along for the ride or not, who knows. But I would love to come back and do it again. It's been a phenomenal experience, and I'm extremely grateful that I had the opportunity to participate in this.
See? It looks like a 50s diner! We're not sure what the main tiles are made of, but the edges are marble. This was a really nice room in its heyday. Towards the bottom of the picture, you'll notice a hole in the floor. This is a natural cave that has collapsed in on itself. We're not sure, but the way it looks is that they builders didn't know about it when they were building it. Shortly after this, we took a tour of the rest of the site that we didn't see the first day we got here. This was to see the roman soldier's footprint in the plaster, the city wall, the bath house, and the theater they uncovered this year. This also gave Dr. Schuler a chance to photograph everything without us getting in the way. When we got back, we had to cover the floor back up, once again, to keep stupid tourists from taking stuff. The bus came about half an hour early, so we had to do a mad rush to take all our tools back to the IDF building to store them.
The Israeli Parks Authority is the group that technically owns the site. It is they that require us to do a lot of the fencing, stair building, and safety stuff. We'd still do it anyway, but they require us to do it. These jobs are crucial to keeping the site and the visitors safe. Without it, the archaeology would still go on, but visitors would not be allowed. And to be able to go see a site in the process of excavation is really a unique thing. So it is great that we are doing this.
It's really hard to believe that it's been a month in Israel already. With only 20 days of digging, we've done a lot. We've made some awesome finds as well as great architectural features. Once again, this year has brought up more questions than answers. We'll have to see what we find in to years to try to answer those questions. Whether I'll be along for the ride or not, who knows. But I would love to come back and do it again. It's been a phenomenal experience, and I'm extremely grateful that I had the opportunity to participate in this.

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