Back on the Job

June 19, 2013  Wednesday

Two days of complete rest for my knee have helped me turn the corner.  It's been just over three weeks since I injured it, and I'm grateful to be feeling better.  Dr. Tabor gave me a ride to the dig site this morning.  He drives each day because he transports our mid-morning breakfast.  Parking here in Jerusalem is only for the brave -- or I should say that getting out of a parking space is a task for the brave.

That's his little tan car, loaded up with our food and trapped by the other car.  It's parked in the lot next to the hotel where all those UN cars are.  (We've decided that it's a used car lot and the UN cars are being sold.)  Two members of the hotel staff got that car out, talking loudly back and forth in Arabic.  It was amazing.

The Zion Gate parking lot is still a little hike from the dig site.  Here's a sign that can be seen along the trail, just inside the fence that encloses the dig.  It's 5:45 a.m.

My first assignment was to make tea.  Dr. Shimon Gibson, one of our directors, is a genuine Englishman who loves his tea.  He says that drinking hot tea actually helps the body cool, because it causes sweating, and then the ever-present breezes have a cooling effect.  The tea is made by boiling water in a large teapot that sits directly on a propane burner.  First several sprigs of fresh sage are simmered, then tea bags are added.  Maybe I was a good person to be in charge since I won't be drinking any tea!

Here's one of our hard-working team members.  The blue bucket is full of "finds" -- probably pottery pieces.  The shade makes SUCH a difference!

Pete spent today searching through the mud that filled an ancient cistern.  The mud was hauled out of the cistern in buckets and brought to Pete and his Russian coworker Olga.  They found lots of pottery and animal bones.  After I was done with the tea, I spent the rest of my day working with a wire mesh sieve.  This was a good assignment for me because my group did the work sitting down.  We found a gazillion pieces of pottery and small animal bones, a fair amount of Roman glass, and a few coins.

Soon after noon, we start our cleanup process. I took some pictures of the site near the end of the cleanup.  It's changed a lot since the first day.

The cistern is about 20' below the buckets of mud.  It's circular, about 15' in diameter.  Pete and Olga will be hunting for stuff in those buckets tomorrow.  Note the brand-new tennis ball on the corner stake.  That's a good safety measure!

Another view of the same area.

This pit in another part of the site is below what we think is a Byzantine-era house.  A stone from an earlier structure is protruding from the fill.  We have some hope of exposing the monumental building that is shown on the Madaba Map in Jordan.  Apparently one of the buildings on the map is unidentified and our directors think it may be on our site.

The big white bags full of dirt and discarded material will be picked up by a crane and hauled away.
On the other side of the fence is a city sidewalk.  Passers-by occasionally stop to ask about the dig.

The weather is getting warmer.  We can hardly wait to get back to our hotel and take showers!  

Our afternoon/evening activity was a lecture by Dr. Craig Evans:  "The Art and Archaeology of Execution in the Roman World."  Despite the gruesome topic, we slept soundly.