Work day 3

I was way too tired to post last night. Sorry if you were actually disappointed. I'm pretty tired today too, so this might be kind of short. I don't know yet. Yesterday and today have mostly consisted of emptying out the tunnel dirt so we can make it down to the cavern at the end of the tunnel. We haven't started sifting yet, but we will once we make it into the cavern. Most of the dirt in the tunnel is from it was first excavated in the early 1900s, but the dirt all fell back in, so it's been pretty well picked over. Anything we've been finding is just pieces of pottery, but we can take anything of those that we want as long as they don't have any paintings or special markings on them.

I did make it down in to the tunnel yesterday. Finally got up the courage to make the jump over the ladder.... then they knocked out the fencing and put a smaller ladder in that didn't require any jumping to get too. lol. Oh well!

The tunnel is very large, long, dark, and damp. It's really neat though. Mostly what I did yesterday was to help make stairs for us to walk up and down, and I did a bit more of that this morning. The rest of today,though, I spent emptying the bags of dirt that the crane brought out of the tunnel, and sending empty ones back down. We did dig through the dirt some, but like i said above, anything we found was just pieces. We found a lot of bones today; a mix of human and animal. It is hard to tell anything from a bunch of random bones. Any dating comes from the pottery styles. I am learning a lot of interesting facts from the professors about archaeology. They are incredibly knowledgeable.

Well, I'm going to head off to bed pretty quick here. It is only about 7:40, but we get up at 5:30 and do a lot of hard work, so my bed time here is about 9pm. So weird for me.... goodnight all!

And the dig begins....

Today was a lot of preparation for the dig. We set up our break shelters, safety netting and other safety needs, ran electricity into the hole, and eventually started a bit of the dig near the end of the day. For those of you who aren't aware, I am working on the water system at Tel Gezer. It is basically a big dark hole in the ground.

Gezer water system

In our time of the dig, they are hoping to get down to cavern that is at the bottom of the hole. They opened it up part way last year, but they want to get the rest of it cleaned out, and they are hoping that there is a second entrance on the other side. I have not been down in the hole yet, but hopefully I will get up the courage tomorrow. To get in you have to climb a ladder over a barrier, swing you leg over to another ladder, then climb down in to the hole. Heights are not my friend, but when it comes time to dig, I will not miss out on it. I will just have to suck it up. Tomorrow we begin to clean out the water system, I hope I can find something interesting. :)

Caesarea, Mt. Carmel, Megiddo

We only went to three sites today, but it was much more of a drive. Our first stop was at the ancient city of Caesarea, built by King Herod and mentioned in Acts 10. It was a very Roman-esq city. Very cool to walk through. You can see remains of a theater, an amphitheater, the palace, houses, etc. I probably took way too many pictures.

Our second site of the day was to a monastery on the top of Mt. Caramel, the traditional site of where Elija most likely challenged the prophets of Baal (1Kings 18), and below in the valley was Jezreel. It was an absolutely beautiful garden and view from up there.

Our third visit was to the city of Megiddo, Armageddon from Revelation, and mentioned many places in the old testament. It was a huge site, with a tunneled water system beneath it that we could walk through. Another very cool place to walk around.

Tomorrow we begin the dig, so no more site seeing till the weekend, but I'm sure I'll still have a lot to tell you about. :) Sorry for the lack of photos, they wouldn't upload tonight. :/. They'll be on facebook eventually though!

Walking the Old Testament

We didn't end up going back to Jerusalem today since the rest of our group hasn't arrived yet, and they want to do all the big sites in one day for everyone. We did get to see some pretty neat archeological sites from the Old Testament. We started with Zorah, Samson's home (Judges 13). Most of the sites that have been excavated there date back more to the Byzantine era rebuild, but it was still cool to see.

Area for wine and olive pressing

The view from Zorah

These pitted out areas were all over

The next site was Beth Shemesh (1 Samuel 6). There was an under ground water system that we went down in to, and most of the excavated area so far were at one point the houses for the wealthier and/or government buildings.

Our next stop was what they are 90% sure is Shaaraim (I guess the name means literally "two gates") since it is in the geographically correct place, and is the only site with two gates (1 Samuel 17). It over looks the valley where the battle between the Israelites and the Philistines took place that ended with David killing Goliath. From there we could see Socoh and could kind of see Azekah, and the next hill over was Jarmuth. Along the base of the hill where Shaaraim is a brook, that was pretty much dry and not so rippling, but it is very likely the brook it mentions in the passage.

One of the gate houses, the gate is the opening farthest forward. The hill on the tight is Jarmuth, the hill on the left is Socoh, the valley is where the battle took place.

After that we headed to Lakhish (or Lachish), which is an area Joshua conquered at one point (Joshua 10), and was rebuilt and conquered several other times by all sorts or different people groups. It was very high up, so the view was incredible, but the walk was kind of killer.

Lakhish from the ground, but only one side.

Palace, and view

The last stop of our day was Gath, Goliath's home (1 Samuel 17, again). Another lengthy walk, but very extensive views from the top of the hill. You could see all the way to Gaza. The main excavation site was some sort of temple ground. There was a wash basin, and several rooms uncovered.

Temple Ground

I have so many more photos, but the internet at our hotel is a bit slow, so you'll have to wait till I get home and post them on facebook. :) Now I am going to bed.

Shawarma and such

We spent the morning and most of the afternoon in Jerusalem today. Mostly we just walked around and got a bit of history. We will do a bit more actual site seeing tomorrow, though we did visit the Western Wall (Wailing Wall) and I got a lesson in proper dress: NOT shorts and a tank top. Thankfully I had just bought a couple of scarves, so I was able to cover up to enter the area. The professor that was showing us around forgot about the rule regarding women's clothing. Here I thought my knee length shorts were appropriate....

I did learn some pretty interesting stuff other than that. In the cities here you're not walking through history like you would in Europe, you're actually walking over it. The cities are built in layers over layers of previous buildings that were ruined. The street level from Jesus's time is actually around 70ft below current street level, and there are more levels beneath that. It seems so strange to me when people would cover up their history rather than displaying it, but that may have something to do with the fact that in America we just don't have that kind of history so I see it as so valuable. We don't have Roman pillars beneath our streets! There are excavation projects going on though, so some of it you can see now.

We hit the market at a pretty good time, so it wasn't crazy busy. Tons of shops and vendors, and smells. Good and weird.... and sometimes kind of awful. We got shawarma for lunch from a street shop. It was delicious. Ever since I saw "The Avengers" movie I have wondered what shawarma is. Now I know, and I like it. Easy explanation: it is meat and veggies stuffed into a pita. More detailed explanation can be found here.

Well, that's pretty much it for today. I should have uploaded some of the photos I took today onto my laptop, but my camera is in my room and I am in the lobby. You can see them later. Maybe I'll post a big heap tomorrow.

Hello, from Israel!

Well, my day yesterday started off pretty normal. Finished up my packing, got my last Elbow Room (my favorite coffee shop) coffee for two weeks, had lunch, then headed to the air port. Up till I got to my gate, everything ran smoothly. I got there early so I was waiting around for  while, so I decided to check the time for my next flight. That's when I realized that my arrival time in NYC was the same as my boarding time for my next flight. Talked to the people at the gate about if there was something I should do since I had another flight right after. They were incredibly unhelpful and a bit rude, then they told me I could reschedule my flight. No way was I going to reschedule. Then, as I started to walk away from the counter, they made an announcement that our flight would be delayed 20 minutes. Now, those of you who know me well know how good I am at dealing with the stress of sudden changes: not good at all. Cue anxiety attack/mental breakdown. Called my mom back, freaking out. How the heck was I supposed to make my next flight..... there is no way I was going to reschedule.... blah, blah, blah. My mother is much better at thinking clearly when I am having my stress freakouts. We decided that I would just proceed as planned, and with a lot of prayer. Got to the gate in NYC at 8:05 pm. Finally made it off the plane by 8:15. My next flight was scheduled to leave at 8:30. I RAN. Like, the kind of running you see in movies when people are trying to catch a flight. Made it with five minutes to spare, and then they decided to delay the flight 20 minutes. And then it got delayed another 20 minutes because of weather. Ten hours later, hello Israel!

Tonight is pretty much just a catch up on sleep night. Got to the hotel, had dinner, now I'm in my room listening to music and writing for you. :)

View from our hill top hotel

Long time, no blog....

Well hello there friends, it's been a while. I have a bad habit of starting things and not finishing them. Tomorrow, though, I am leaving on a trip to Israel to cross another thing off my bucket list: an archaeological dig! I will be part of the effort to excavate the water system at Gezer. You can learn about Gezer here. So, I thought now would be an excellent time to re-start my blog. This is bound to be an interesting and amazing trip, so I would like to share it with you. For now, though, I need to sleep. The packing is almost done, and the eyes are tired. Goodnight!