STOP 3 | Israel: What do Archeologists do? (1)

This post is dedicated to Toul, a dear friend of mine that today whatsapped me. He shared some amazing news with me yesterday and I cannot be happier for him. We haven't seen each other for a while - we met in Dublin - in 2011. He is French and with me being Italian, it's already a complicated relationship. We haven't talked since ever, but I really considered him a great dude, (and not too French). We won Euro2020, dude: love you, bro!

The Actual Dig

This is the first excavation I am attending, so I cannot generalize, but I would like to flash out my learnings so far. As mentioned before, I was assigned to area S. Each area is identified based on some signals or evidence. In the case of area S, the area was identified due to the fact the Israeli authority started digging to develop parking slots in the Tel Zafit National Park and they found out some walls and old structure worth it and investigation. Area S diggers below:

Each area is then divided in smaller parts - squares - 5x5. Don't know if this true worldwide. And each square is numbered. People started digging in what became "our" square - I don't want to put the official number, as it's covered by privacy - last week, but they were able to dig only 1 day, since there were not enough students or volunteers --> What I've just found out is that Archeology cannot exist without students or volunteers, which is good and bad:

• Good: they need people willing to dig with passion
• Bad: in case such people are missing, Archaeologists cannot do things alone

So my group and I started this week on Monday (as Sunday was dedicated to pottery washing) and now it's Thursday. In 4 days Monica, Hannah and I were able to dig a lot and probably - according to the color and the consistency of the soil - we are close to the destruction level, i.e. the level of Gath city when it was destroyed by Hazael, king of Aram-Damascus around 830 BC.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

    

Out of our square, which is smaller - 4x4 meters - than the others for logistics reasons (there was a modern wall we couldn't remove), we focused our attention on the top half. Digging is pretty tiring but enhancing and fulfilling, especially when you find something. What we need to do is to start with pickaxe trying to be as much homogenous across the area as possible. This is really important, because ideally at each level of excavation, something happened in the past - the funny thing is that you do not know what and how, and that's what you need to discover.

We are supervised by a couple of Experts - usually Archaeologists or PhD students - who can guide as through the process. Our couple - Shira and Shani - is amazing honestly: easy going, prepared, hard workers and nice to us, unless when people are late, which is understandable. :)

After doing pickaxing for the whole surface, we need to:

• collect all the pottery finds (in this case) in a basket, which is numbered with all the details of the excavations
• collect all the dirt and sand and rocks and waste into other baskets that we will then empty into wheelbarrows and dump in a specific area

We need also to spot the differences in soil composition and detect any objects that may be relevant as well: such uncommon objects will be put in separate bags within our baskets, to make sure they can be studied. Below me with cow bones:

Many times, we really need to work with cautious on the corners, to avoid destroying important artifacts.

When you reach an important level, such as the "destruction level" in our case, you will find different soil composition as well as multiple objects spaced out or collapsed. We haven't reached such level yet, but we feel we are close: hopefully tomorrow can be the day!

Our Supervisors use GPS to take measurements every now and then, especially when they notice unusual, to understand at which height we are.

Today we found a juglet almost intact (oh well, rim was missing, obviously)! I was the one digging it out.

You can see below me pretending drinking from the cup full of "dirt" (on the left).

Since my whole Sabbatical experience is about Connections, I try to bring to work my "best" self, adding some spice wherever possible. Look at me dancing on the field before getting back to work. And yes, created a Spotify Es-Safi playlist to add some colors to our dig :)

Professor Aren was inspired by my music today and we will surprise you all shortly. Watch this space! :D

Once we are done we clean-up the space (I hate cleaning up, I can dig as much as you tell me, but don't let me clean-up with the broom and dustpan, PLEASE!) and we put down the tents.

And we bring our finds to our base: the Kibbutz.

That's all for now!