Tel Michal - Take Two

I am posting a bit late (like the next day late), but it has been a busy weekend. Ian was visiting, he was an assistant area supervisor in area Q at Megidddo and had a few days before he was due back in the UK. I managed to rope him in to coming with me to Tel Michal as I need to do a project for University and needed his help.

We started out going to visit Tel Hefer. I had read about this Tel, which is on the edge of Nahal Alexander and wanted to see what was there. Nothing, it seems. We found some remnants of the digs that had taken place in the past, all overgrown and hard to spot. So we tired of battling the thorns and weeds and headed to Tel Michal.

I have visited Tel Michal before on my Saturday trips, but this time it was different. I need to do a big project for my current MA course in Managing Archaeological Projects and chose Tel Michal because it is near my office and certainly in danger of being lost. The project calls for designing, scheduling and costing an archaeological salvage operation from the beginning to the end (including archiving and publication). Tel Michal is on the coast directly opposite the Herziliya Marina and Arena mall. The Tel has seen occupation from the middle bronze through the Persian period to the Romans and was a major port until Appolonia (a few kilometers up the coast) took over. It happens to be maybe 300 meters from my office.

I was under the mistaken idea that I could write about the whole site, but Ian quickly zeroed in on a smaller section that would be more realistic to attempt. There is a large Roman fort like structure on the high mound that has been extensively excavated and probably restored, so I needed to find somewhere that looks like it has not been dug, but should be. The pictures below should give some idea of what we found.
This is a picture from the Tel looking northward along the coast (so probably NW). You can see the Mall and marina and all the construction. This is prime real-estate and so only a matter of time before economic pressures force this site to be developed.
Looking southward towards Tel Aviv in the distance. This picture, taken from the high mound, shows the area I think I will investigate - where you see the green fence just to the left of the ridge. On closer examination (see pictures below) there are signs of occupation here.
This is the view looking out from the investigation area towards the sea. See the tennis courts there to the left. We found a lot of tennis balls laying around.
The ridge down to the road shows a lot of erosion and signs of some serious architecture. From the little bit of info I have on the previous digs (I will get more from the library) this section was not dug.
Below that green fence you can see that there was what looks to be a layer of occupation - above the uniform sand section. There could also possibly be a floor here.
Here is a close up of the same area. You can see the pottery embedded in the sand. So this looks promising.

We took some sherds of pottery home to try identify when they were from. It just so happened that yesterday there was a birthday party for one of the little nephews at our house and in the balegan my mother-in-law turfed them out. So I will have to go back from more. Luckily the Tel is close by.

I am sure you will hear more about this project in the coming weeks. A million thanks to Ian who really helped me think this out. It's great to have a "real archaeologist" around.

Smile

What can I say. Where all real humor originated.

One Out

With a brief hug and a big smile the boy went off to college this morning. His mother had packed "Jonathan suitcase of the world" full to exploding. It was stopped full off brand new underwear in their box, brand new socks in their box, sheets (brand new), towels (brand new), pots and pans (all brand new of course) - I wonder if he will even unpack the case in the next year.

I hope he can find something at university that holds his interest as much as gaming has for as long as I can remember. Personally I don't care about grades or courses, all I want is for him to have a good time, meet some people, make some friends and perhaps figure out where he plans to head in life. I think the 18-25 years are the hardest. You are so unsure of who you really are and so keep trying on different personas and looking in the mirror to see if they fit. I am proud of the boy, he is one of the truly good people in the world, I just hope he can find his way. And I promise we won't turn his room into a sparkling white guest room with bright green bed covers as soon as he is out the door (not that I'm bitter or anything).

John Prine

I'm a man blessed with good nephews. We get along well and correspond from time to time, but there's no pressure. Blackedwino took time off of curing the weak and infirm and updated me on what I should be listening to. (Years back he told me that The Arcade Fire are where it's at, and he was not wrong. They have a new album, but it's not officially released yet and there are no videos (that I can find) yet). Still he pointed me to a Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver) covering a John Prine song called "Burned Orange" (go watch it). This reminded me of how much I like John Prine, one of the most serious (and under appreciated) songwriters I know. I always liked the song "Burned Orange", and I had this story in my head about what the words meant. Anyway, there I was clicking around YouTube after watching the cover, when I stumbled on this John Prine classic video - isn't this what the whole internet is for. The story behind the song:

Some More Interesting Stuff

I didn't post anything yesterday as I was in shock as my mother called from Houston and told me it's not a problem that we haven't spoken for a few weeks because she reads my "blob" every day. Hi Mom! (of course, I stood up when talking to her on the phone).

So instead of a Raanana weekly photo (what makes you think I haven't been out the house for a while) here are two interesting clips from the interweb.

Firstly Rob Lang reminded me on FB of the brilliant musician/comedian Bill Bailey - here is a short snippet:

Blacknephewo,who is quite busy in his own right, sent me this gem:

I'll post the Tuesday music video later today. But, just don't think I'm not out striving to find things to entertain you people.

Turkish Coffee Cups

Now I'm a lover of tradition y'know. I like hand saws, fountain pens, vi, tap water, beer flavored beer (none of that blueberry, jasmine and honey ale for me)and regular headphones (none of that in-ear crap). So when blackwifeo first brought these high tech Turkish coffee cups home, I was skeptical to say the least. We have have our thimble sized regular thick rimmed glass Turkish coffee cups in the bag with the finjan and gaziyah (gas coffee cooker for Saturday morning archaeology) and I am happy with them. So you burn your fingers occasionally, so what.

Then one day we were out of espresso cups, a not at all rare occurrence now the dishwasher is on the blink, so I reached for one of these new-fangled Elite silicon finger protecting Turkish coffee cups, and you know what. They work. The coffee was delicious and my fingers remained cool. The size is right too. They are not so big that your espresso gets lost and not so small that you can't fit your morning double. So I'm sold.

Now it seems you can only get them as a "free" gift in a special edition 4 pack of Elite Turkish coffee (the red kind not the green kind with cardamon). So we have lived with two of these cups for a while. Friday bwo found two more. Lets see how long the four last before Aziza the Destroyer decides to see if they bounce off the tiled floor.

So you see folks, I'm a modern kind of guy. I'm prepared to change if there's reason. Though I'm not ready to add them to the gaziyah yet. I give them at least 83%.

Tel Gerisa

I went out alone this morning. Blacksono will be off to college next week so I was practicing being a lone Saturday morning explorer. I decided to try visit somewhere quite close and chose Tel Gerisa, which is on the edge of the Yarkon Park in Ramat Gan. You people in Israel have probably driven by this dozens of times. Here, I have included a google map (I tried including an interactive map, but for some reason it does not show the streets, so this is a jpg).

Tel Gerisa is also known as "Napoleon's Hill" as during his army's siege of Jappa they established a camp on this hill. The Yarkon River which is very close by to the north, served as a natural anchorage in ancient times and Tel Gerisa's being situated on the end of a Kurkar ridge made it the perfect port.

The Tel was originally excavated for five seasons by Eleazar Sukenik (famous for being the purchaser of the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as being Yigal Yadin's father) between 1927 and 1950. Sukenik was particularly fascinated by the Middle Bronze II (according to Mazar this is 2000-1550 BCE) fortifications which seem to have been very impressive indeed. There was a huge mud brick covered glacis (pronounced glacee - a sort of slope build in front of a city wall that prevents siege machines and burrowing) around the walls that were uncovered. This must have been a very large civic project in those days. Unfortunately, try as I did, I could not find a single trace of this glacis.

More recently (1981-83) there have been three seasons of excavations by Z. Herzog of TAU.He found the Tel had been occupied from the Early Bronze III (beginning of third millennium BCE) and followed the settlement through the various ages (Early, middle, late Bronze and then Iron). He found multiple fortifications around the middle bronze along with storage jars and cultic figurines. He also found Philistine vessels from the Iron Age levels. It is believed that during the Iron Age the settlement at Tel Gerisa was a small village near the much bigger Tel Qasile (now in the Tel Aviv Museum's gardens).

While my encyclopedia has been a big help here, there is unfortunately no map of the site that I could find, so I struggled to turn the words into a picture of what was where. The digs have long been abandoned and are overgrown. So the pictures are a bit lame, sorry.
This is the view from the top of the Tel. It's in the middle of Ramat Gan and surrounded by apartments with people having breakfast and taking their dogs out for a morning walk.
That's the Yarkon in the distance behind the trees. So we are looking to the north here.
This is what remains of the water system that Sukenik found. It is an impressive shaft 6 meters wide cut into the Kurkar. Steps are cut into the side of the shaft and are just visible under the log (overgrown with weeds).Pot sherds dating to Iron Age I were found in the sides of the well and the shaft cut into the rock. So once again we see that water was what it was all about in those early days (as it is today).
I could not help looking off the edge of the Tel at the buildings in the distance and imagining what it would have looked like around four thousand years ago without buildings and just a huge city wall and some mud brick houses. Above are what I think is the excavated remains of domestic dwellings (I could be totally wrong, but they looked nice and square to me, I suppose they could have been store rooms). Below is the view from the Tel looking south towards the diamond exchange area.
I suppose I should get used to going out on my own. Maybe it's time to take up some of the offers I have for company.

Less Than A Week

In less than a week the boy starts college. He is enrolled in the Ben Gurion University Overseas program (the link is worth checking out). Of course, his mother, bwo, is panicking (much better, as my mother would say). She hit the stores today and bought him plates, pots, tupperware, knives, sheets etc. etc. It looks like he's off for a year expedition to the Antarctic. He, mind you, is not the least bit interested in all this stuff. He took a few minutes off his gaming saving the world to come check out all his goodies covering the dining room table. He was mildly interested and just shrugged when I asked him how he plans to carry all this stuff to his dorm room, before rushing off upstairs to save the planet. Yes, he will be staying in dorms there in Be'er Sheva.

When we went to check out the college and the dorms we were pleasantly surprised to find that they actually have A/C and private rooms. There is a small kitchen and shared bathroom for 4 people. He will eventually be living with Israelis, but he first has two months Ulpan to learn Hebrew. There will probably not be Israelis around during this time as real university starts some time in Oct/Nov. The goal is that he learn Hebrew. Let see if he can do this or if Be'er Sheva just gives up and adopts English.

Personally, I would swap with him in a second, but they only take under 25 year olds - so I'm double the required age. I just hope he can enjoy this experience. It's quite a test.

Grapes

It is not usual that one finds more than 80% in this country, and today I found it right under my nose. We get fruit here at squint central. The grapes this year have been particularly good and I enjoy them often. Today I realized what is so good about them. Not only are they sweet and juicy but Carmit our office admin (they have not been called secretaries for many years) actually cuts each bunch into smaller sections that are convenient to hold and consume. It appears she has been doing this for ages. I never realized that part of the attraction of these grapes is that the bunches are perfectly sized (by her) for individual consumption. Clearly this is her German extract showing through. None of those oversized bunches that you have to try tear apart without forcing grapes to fly all over the kitchen. No, you just go to the bowl and pick a smaller, pre-prepared mini bunch. Very nice.

One Day

This video is for blackwifeo. She has put up with my grumpiness and accompanying black cloud for a while now. I can't promise that it will lift any time soon, but I'm doing my best. Bwo really likes Matisyahu. I think it's not bad - he seems like a nice enough bloke and the Hassidic Reggae thing is cute. So here is Matisyahu's version.

We all know how much bwo loves cover versions, so for a sepcial treat, here is the Yeshiva University Maccabeats with an A cappella version of the same song.

An Early Morning Trip

Blackwifeo and I woke at 3:30am and motored off to Tel Megiddo to see the sun rise, check out the progress and say goodbye to the people. We had a great time. They have made tons of progress in Area Q, but have only what remains of this week and next week to go. Here are before and after pictures of square D6, they were shot from different sides of the square, but you get the general impression. We were back home by 8:30am so I could spend the day at the salt mines. Thanks again all you Megiddoers.

Above is what it looked like when we started. Below is what it looks like today.

A Serious Issue

You know how hot it is? It's so hot that you cannot find a cold enough diet coke anywhere in this oven of a country. Nowhere. They are just not cold enough - just slightly too fizzy and they don't burn enough when going down. It's very sad.

Only Threatening Works

Sorry peeps, not much to report today. I studied most of the day and actually got quite a bit of my paper done. So I feel good. No early morning archaeology trip today as I went out yesterday.

Talk about 80% though - I have to complain about my internet here at home. So a while back (a month or two) I "upgraded" to a 10M NGN hookup. Since then we have been having trouble downloading any big file. I get constant hangs and dropped connections Tonight I finally had enough and called Bezeqint our ISP for the tenth time to complain. The guy one the line (Mohommad) told me that there is no problem with the line and the only disconnect we had was at 2pm today (when I rebooted the router). We argued, while he tried to explain to me that I just don't understand computer networking, and that there is nothing wrong, until I told him, fine, I will have to move to HOT. He then called up Bezeq, the infrastructure provider and they did some tests on the line and guess what! The line is bad, and there are "problems" (these problems are way to technical for a simple consumer like me to understand, you see). Well, a technician is coming by tomorrow to check it out. So until I threatened, I got no help. Typical. Absolutely typical.

Tel es-Safi again

I joined the Megiddo people this morning for a tour of Tel es-Safi. I had been there before with bno a while back, but this was an opportunity to get an explanation from Aren Maeir the director of the dig there. It was interesting in many ways, but mostly it was just great to see some of the Megiddo people again. I really miss them all.

They seem to dig there on Fridays which is strange to me being a Sunday to Thursday worker for many years. They are also working very closely with the Weitzmann Institute and collecting many, many samples for close microscopic/chemical/scientific scrutiny. This makes slow going on the digging side, and you could sense some of the archaeologist's frustration through their jokes. Clearly they understand the importance of this thorough investigation, but the digging season is short (just two weeks to go) and then it's another year at least before they get back to the site.

Another thing that some of the experienced Megiddo people mentioned is how it seems that at Tel es-Safi (like at Megiddo) anything before the Iron Age is pretty much in the way. There seems to be a push to dig quickly through British/Ottoman/Crusader/Arab/Byzantine/Roman/Hellenistic/Persian layers to get to the "goods". It's not that these other layers are irrelevant, just that with little excavation time at hand it is necessary to make progress where it counts (and where there is money for research I assume).
Here is Aren Maeir giving us an introduction to the site. The Australian Ambassador was coming to visit while we were there (they have a bunch of Australian team members), so he could not spend too much time with us. It seems that doing a lot of PR is a necessary part of the job for a dig director.I have not put up too many pictures of the dig as I am sure you are all bored stiff with pictures of archaeology. But this is pretty cool. They found a skeleton of an ass in this area. It is really nice to see other sites and see how they go about their work.
This is a close up of what is left of the ass skeleton. Those ridges are ribs I believe. The guys working on this said it is really difficult to get it out of the ground without the bones disintegrating. So they are using brushes etc.

All in all a very nice morning. We stopped off at Tel Beit Shemesh on the way home and checked out the cistern. Like I said, it was great to see the Megiddo people again - after the last week at work this was just the break I needed.

High Fidelity

It's Thursday evening. Fantastic. I did some studying and then looked for some mindless drivel to watch in the usual download place. Then I saw bwo had downloaded "High Fidelity" one of my favorite nostalgic movies of all time. We once had a record shop, quite similar to "Championship Vinyl". I think we did a lot of the 10 best "whatevers" lists in the store (or do I not remember this well at all). This movie has Jack Black at his young best. The book is, in my opinion, Nick Hornby's best. So here I sit watching it again, and still loving it. One of my favorite movies, with one of my favorite lines "Marie De Salle's playing .... I like her she's kind of Sheryl Crowish, crossed with a post-Partridge family, pre LA Law Susan Dey kind of thing, but you know ... um, black". "but it looks as if you're reorganizing your records, um what chronological?", "No", "Not alphabetical?", "Nope", "What then?", "Autobiographical", "No fucken way!"

SunglassesOverGlasses

Sorry for the crappy picture, but I have to recommend these sunglasses over glasses things that I bought last week to go with my new (non-automatic tinting) multi-focals. They work excellently. They fit over your regular glasses, which means you can see normally at all times and they are sufficiently dark and polarized so that the blinding middle eastern sun is not a bother. I see that you can buy them at Walgreens in the US for around $20, about half of what the cost here in the Holy Land. Well worth it.

So what if I look like an alien when wearing them. And of course they come in black!

Modest Mouse

I have been looking for a video for this song for a long time. It's not the official one (I don't think there is one) some dude posted it to YouTube and it's not bad. I love Modest Mouse, and this song in particular. So enjoy "Bukowski", I certainly do.

The Smoking Bench

The picture below is the bench bdo and I sit on to resolve arguments. Bdo knows this bench well as it's where she goes to smoke (like we don't know). The bench is at the top of the path that leads past our house. The graffiti is relatively new and not all that artistic.
This is what you look at when you sit on the smoking bench. Not all that impressive at all is it. Talk about 80%, this is supposed to be a high class neighborhood, I tell ya.
That's the Raanana picture for this week. I hope you are enjoying.

The biggest TV event in history?

Apparently the World Cup final tonight between Holland and Spain could smash all previous audience records. I for one, will probably be asleep. I will try stay up, but I more than likely will collapse and just go sleep on my bed. Lame, I know. I have watched quite a lot of the games and enjoyed those I managed to see, but starting at 9:30pm, come on that's way past my bedtime.

In other news, blackwifeo called a "family conference" today. She's going on strike she says. The dishwasher doesn't work, the maid doesn't come and we are not all doing our part. At some point I got so angry with blackdaughtero that I lost it completely and said some things I didn't mean. Lots of screaming and doorbanging and out-of-house storming later we made up and spoke like civilized people. This parenting thing is just so frustrating. They so know how to push your buttons, and bdo and I are very similar in temperament, so she is an expert at pushing mine as I am at hers. It is all so draining. We had a good chat after though and hopefully we can work together to keep the house habitable. Wouldn't count on it though. Had that screaming match been televised it could have competed with the World Cup for ratings.

Big Bang Big boom

Patrick posted this on his Facebook page. I think it's excellent. Better than the no archaeology today - I just lazed around the house. Man, I'm slack.

Band of Brothers

It has been an agonizingly tough week at work. I also have a paper due in a few weeks, and I'm struggling to focus on getting it done. I have been exhausted, depressed and quite dysfunctional. So I decided to watch the HBO miniseries, "Band of Brothers", to take my mind off my own misery.

Wow, talk about putting things in perspective. I am in awe of of the men from Easy Company. In fact I'm in awe of soldiers in general. The hell and torture they went (and go) through helped me put my cushy, easy life in perspective. So I've decided to stop whining and feeling sorry for myself and get down to work.

p.s. The mini-series is excellent and I recommend it highly - It's not easy to watch, but then nothing worthwhile is really (this is becoming a sort of mantra for me).

The Revolt of the Appliances

Our house is not doing well, all our appliances are ill. The fridge is cooling sporadically and the vacuum cleaner died a while ago at the hands of Azziza the destroyer (thanks Shirley for Mervyn the Moffy Richards, we'll try keep it out of Azziza's hands). The dishwasher is leaking badly and the electricity keeps tripping. The front gate is stuck closed. One of the windows in the mezbeleh is stuck open. It's all ridiculous. Of course, the TV remote has been missing for ages, it's probably vacationing with the remote for the A/C. Only one phone downstairs works and since blackwifeo rearranged the bedroom a few days back we have no phone upstairs either.

At least for the time being the TV stills work and I can watch Germany and Spain.

Sinnerman- Where you gonna run to.

Jo here. BPO is knackered.
It's been really exhausting for him, sitting all day in his air conditioned office, dealing with the squints. I know, he is dying to get back to Meggido, but hey... Ma La'asot. Life goes on. And on. So I am taking pity on him and doing this weeks Tunes for Tuesday, or whatever it is now called.
I wanted to post Nina Simone's Sinnerman, (which is bloody awesome) but could not find a video of it.  I may have made a huge faux pas by posting the following "movie/video" clip with the song in the background-  but no choice- its the next best thing.
I really liked the Thomas Crown Affair remake and I especially love this scene. Renee Rousseau is wearing the best color lipstick ever. Totally matches her hair. Spoiler alert: yada yada yada.

Some Raanana Pictures

It's back to the usual routine this week and today it's time for the Raanana Weekly Photo. I have two pictures for you today. It's a special treat.
This is Morris (or Morrisey for short). One of the three kittens that showed up on our doorstep while I was away. He won't let anyone near him yet, but that will change over time. He (or she) is very cute.
Blackwifeo snapped this with her iPhone while in the supermarket today. For those of you who can't read Hebrew, the pink sticker proudly proclaims "This product contains 59 sheets instead of 70 sheets" - O.K. can someone please explain this excellent piece of marketing.

Welcome Zachary Bennett

My family is rather small so it is great news that yesterday, Paul and Carrie brought Zachary Bennett into the world. Out of nine males it looks like the continuation of our family name rests on the shoulders of four or so (assuming I counted correctly and Paul, Edwin and Phillip stop producing). So no pressure guys - it's up to Doron, Gilad, Ben and Zachary to keep up the name. Unless of course the young ladies in our family decide to keep their last name then we would have six more candidates. This is one of the things that keep me up at night.

So congratulations, Paul and Carrie, your children are lucky to have such parents. I look forward to seeing you guys soon.

Friday Morning in the Town

Not being one to shy away from plunging into the deep end, I asked blackwifeo to accompany me into downtown Raanana yesterday (Friday) morning. Being freshly returned from the dig and the peace and quiet of the Kibbutz, I figured this would be a good way to acclimatize myself to life back in the city (or the suburbs, to be more precise). My expensive pair of multi-focal glasses had been blown off my head in the windstorm we had in the second week and when they showed up the next morning they were sadly bent out of shape and scratched beyond repair and use. So I took myself off to the optician and was told that a new pair would take a week. My old (scratched) pair had those fancy "get darker in the light" coating that was useful but costly. The new pair will be plain and was talked into some serious sunglasses that go over the frames and lenses - these come highly recommended by the optician (they need more money to install heating in the swimming pool they bought with the proceeds of my last pair of glasses).

All this aside, it is always interesting to go downtown with the wife on a Friday morning. There is nothing more frustrating. You can't take two steps without her meeting someone she knows and needs only a minute to stop and chat with. I had planned a surgical strike. To the optician, maybe score some garinim and fresh pitot for the weekend, an then back home. But, No! we had to stop and hobnob with all sorts of people (I'm not talking about you Michelle, meeting you is always a pleasure :-) Eventually I got fed up (I'm a patient man usually) and walked off to the glasses store on my own. She arrived in due course, hated the frames I chose, bought herself some new (unscheduled, reddish) frames, and then decided I should buy flowers, pick up her mom and stop at the store on the way home. She could not understand at all why I was a tad peeved.

God I love that woman.

Days Forteen and Fifteen - It's All Over

It's over. I'm back home and relaxed after a long shower and a wonderful two and a half hour nap. I'll miss the Kibbutz, the Tel and the people. I'm weary, but happy. I love archaeology and playing in the dirt. Troweling around in the Iron Age soil took me back to my childhood digging up the back yard at no. 35. The soil even smelled the same. I have posted some of my pictures below as blackwifeo says the blogs are very boring without pictures. From tomorrow it's back to the whining and complaining, I promise.

Above you can see what our square looked like when we started. There were three big stones in the middle, and a wall with a platform. Notice how deep it was then compared to where we left off today.
This is after we took out the three stones and the platform with it's little wall.We dug in quadrants, and the string separated each quadrant. We collected pottery, bone and flint in separate bags per quadrant.
This is what our square looked like today. We have uncovered a wall and some sort of pavement/wall debris, no one is sure what it is yet. It is all very interesting and theories abound. I will miss knowing what is going on but the people staying on have promised to keep me updated.
This is Prof. Ussishkin and Neville the column in the north east corner of our square. Neville's bottom has yet to be reached. He was only showing about 20 centimeters below the sandbags when we started digging.
Prof. Finkelstein sitting and contemplating the walls in our square. It was pretty much the center of attention in our area and we lucked out as there was so much going on. A perfect learning opportunity.
O.K. so last night was the end of first session party and most of the youngsters got smashed (I went to bed). So this morning there were a lot of people very slow on their feet. Here Katy and Caitlin are "resting" on one of the walls in our square.
This is all of Area Q who were around on today as we closed up (Anna and Drew left to catch early flights out). Norma climbed to the very top - she's very brave.Good people.
I found the rightmost orange bead. I know it doesn't look like much, but I like it.
The final picture of the people of square D6. You can see the wall and some of the debris. A nice square.

Well that's it for my Megiddo 2010 (and I have the (black) teeshirt to prove it). I hope I will be able to make it back in 2012. It was all absolutely memorable. Sunday it's back to the salt mines.