Thursday, July 1, 2010

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.

4 comments:

oliviao said...

What saltmines?? You WERE in the saltmines!!

Shira said...

Hi,
Sounds like one hell of an adventure :) (in a good way I mean).

Shira .F.

blackpetero said...

Hi Shira

It looks like you did not go. I saw the guys from your group there for a few days. It was an amazing experience. Well worth it. Hope your exams went went well.

peter

Shira said...

yes meanwhile i didnt go, its a long story. I still hope that i will have a chance to go this season, though as it seams now its really questionable (it depends whether there will be a need in additional hands :).

yes, indeed in all the photo's it looks interesting and may i say exciting :)
Hope you "recovered" from the dig.
btw, in the site of the expedition: http://digmegiddo2010.wordpress.com/ there are some nice pictures


Shira