Excavating Canaan as Israelis

For the last couple weeks Matt has been working on an archaeological dig. What this means for me is that I have been sleeping alone. Thankfully it hasn't been too lonely since work has been keeping me busy and our friends are still living with us. 

Being on an archaeological dig is like being at adult summer camp. You live on site (or close to it), you have bunk mates, communal meals, group activities and a giant sand box to play in all day. While it sounds like fun and games, it is also an intense amount of physical labor. You wake up at 4:30am to get in a full day of digging before it gets too hot after lunchtime. The majority of digging doesn't involve uncovering amazing finds, but moving bucket after bucket of dirt. Swinging pick-axes, hauling rocks and collecting broken pottery take up most of your day.  Below, in a first time guest post, Matt explains what it's like to dig in the dirt as an Israeli...

When we made aliyah, the intention was to come to Haifa in order to begin my doctorate in archaeology. The hope was to dig as much as possible throughout the year to get as much experience as possible. If you know anything about our small country here, there is a lot to dig up. Basically everywhere you go there are ruins exposed or hiding beneath the surface of the ground. Quite often, these ruins are integrated into the modern landscape of the country and even find themselves in urban centers. There is so much at stake here that there is an Israeli law that requires archaeological surveys and excavations to be conducted before any construction project begins.

The second week we were here, I spent four days excavating at a site not so far from Tel Aviv called Tell Assur. It was an interesting salvage excavation located in the middle of a field. The project was a joint exposition sponsored by the University of Haifa and the local moshavim and towns in the area. The goal of the dig was to educate local school-aged children on archaeology and the history of the land of Israel.  That meant instead of archaeologists focusing on digging deep trenches and uncovering new finds, we were busy supervising (babysitting, really) a few hundred young Israelis teens hacking away with pick axes, hoes, and shovels in hand. Needless to say, we did a lot less digging and a lot more preventing the kids from destroying the site altogether.

The past few weeks, I have been excavating a Canaanite site that is over 3,500 years old (dates to the Middle Bronze Age). Called Tell Kabri, it is the third largest site in Israel from that time period, and it has the largest palace ever discovered here dating to that time. Located in the middle of Kibbutz Kabri’s avocado orchards (unfortunately it is not avocado season!), it likely once housed a local ruler that was not only Canaanite but that had many connections with the Mediterranean and Greek worlds. A number of years ago, archaeologists uncovered a beautiful fresco wall painting and painted plastered floor with scenes of landscape and the sea. These frescoes are the ONLY ones ever discovered in Israel and the origins of the style are from the Minoan world (a powerful kingdom that existed on Crete, Greece, around the same time period).

What are we working on this year? Figuring out how a large palatial economy functioned. What did Kabri trade, with whom did it trade, and how was trade and commerce conducted, in general? Fortunately for us, we found a large storage room on the side of the palace, filled from wall to wall with large storage vessels, many of which were over a meter tall. Once we are able to completely remove all of the vessels, we can begin to figure out the contents that they once may have held. We are hoping for olives, oils, wines, grains and more.

The past two weeks have been long intense days. The dig week is Sunday throughThursday. We wake up at 4:30 a.m. every morning, start digging by 5:00 a.m., and usually end at around 1:00 p.m. Some days we work double shifts, meaning we excavate through lunch and into the late afternoon. When we are not digging, we are doing other stuff like cleaning and analyzing pottery and bones and analyzing organic samples from soil we kept. It is exhausting work, but it is exceedingly fun.

The hardest part, of course, is being away from home and being away from Stef for so long. This is part of the trade, unfortunately. Luckily, we are only a short train ride away (about 30 minutes), so we’ve managed to sneak in a few extra visits throughout my time on the dig. I hope you enjoy some of the pictures I have been taking!