The Final Countdown

A fragment of a ring that I found

More finds from the display

Week six has come and gone.  As I sit on my bed, procrastinating instead of packing, I thought I should write my penultimate blog post about my final week in Ashkelon.  Week six began with a big, formal dinner called the "Finds Display."  All of the most significant artifacts from this season were displayed on tables for the entire dig to see.  Because every grid is working in a different time period, it was really interesting to see what was found.  It was also pretty amazing to see my own finds on display, like a fragment of a ring that I found in my pit.  It was funny to see everyone dressed up.  After spending six weeks seeing everyone at their dirtiest, it was almost shocking to imagine what these people might look like in real life.  After dinner, everyone sat around the pool, drinking and laughing while shenanigans ensued (on the dig's tab), knowing full well that we would all have to be awake at 4:30 the next morning. 

The bearded boys looking snazzy

The remainder  of this week was spent sweeping, trimming balks (artificial walls), sweeping, articulating stones, sweeping, the tiniest bit of digging, and, oh yes, some more sweeping.  Sweeping dirt off of more dirt is no easy feat.  We had to sweep and resweep areas until footprints, brush strokes and any speck of loose dirt was eliminated.  Tomorrow, a special camera will take aerial photographs of the grid, so it had to be spotless.  I think I might be developing the black lung from all of the dust I've inhaled over the past week.  Sweeping can also drive people a little crazy.  Today, our grid supervisor decided to film Emma, Caroline and me singing "Hero" by Enrique Iglesias into our brushes on a Flip video camera that is uploaded to an archeological server that contains information about our site.  Basically, I'll never be taken seriously in the archeological world ever again. 
    When we weren't in the grid sweeping, we were in the pottery compound doing inventory, pottery marking and other miscellaneous tasks that essentially amounts to secretarial slave labor.  It was not the most exciting week, work-wise. 
    We spent most of the week reminiscing about our time in Ashkelon.  The trials and tribulations, laughter and inside jokes, scandals and secrets (which never lasted more than a few seconds) that made our time here so unique, also made us feel like we never want to leave.  Last night we had a final party for all of the dig members.  One of the boys, Alabama John, made a toast that summed up our feelings about each other and the dig  perfectly.  He said that we are all a family and can rely on each other for anything.  We've been through hell but laughed all the way through.  Nothing and nobody can take away the experience we had here.

     This dig was my back up plan for this summer.  I am so grateful nothing else worked out.  This has been, hands down, the best summer of my life.  The friends I have made here will last a lifetime and the experience as a whole is unforgettable.  I don't want to get on that plane tonight and leave my dig family.   I love all of you guys so much.  Ashkelon 2011, forever.

Week Five Delirium

The remnants of my wall destruction

    There are few things more satisfying in life than taking out a large, stone wall with a pick axe.  I had that pleasure this week as we rushed to finish digging so we could spend most of next week cleaning.  From the first swing of the pick axe, to the initial wiggle, to the final thud as the stone hits the ground, the sense of accomplishment is comparable to reaching a mountaintop or winning a big game.  Or maybe that's just because I was singing "Eye of the Tiger" while I was picking. 
    This week was exhausting.  We spent six full days digging (instead of the usual five, plus a day at the pottery compound).  My square completely changed.  We took down the central street to the next surface (probably around 50cm in total).  We found a wall and a wall collapse.  Finding collapse is really interesting because it's a small snapshot of the society we're digging through.  My grid supervisor was telling us she could imagine the afternoon when they actually knocked the wall down.  The stones jutted out of the dirt at odd angles.  It was almost as if a child had forgotten his toys in the sandbox.  We also found an unbelievable amount of pottery just lying in the street- discarded without a second thought.
    Somehow, I ended up as the bitch of my square this week.  As Ben picked and Stephanie shoveled up the dirt, I carried bucket after bucket out of the grid and to the dump.  I probably lugged a couple hundred buckets, brimming with dirt and rocks, this week.  I think I'll have guns as big as my mom's by the end of the trip.  Who would've thought that I would ever prefer pick axing to any other task?

Unloading our tools at the beginning of the day

    Sleep deprivation and general exhaustion has really caught up with us this week.  Not only do we start digging when the moon is still out (it's started getting lighter later), but injuries and various illnesses have taken their toll on the group as a whole.  We've started laughing at pretty much anything and getting overly upset when someone steals a tool.  Thievery is rampant on the grid.  We have to guard our tools with our lives.  The best brushes, patiches, and  picks are "ninja-ed," as we like to call it, without a second thought.  Sometimes it gets pretty funny- like when I was asked to guard the most coveted pick, dubbed "Big Red" for it's reddish handle, while one of my squaremates went to the bathroom. 
     This week, the VIPs have been visiting the dig.  The VIPs fund our dig (they're donating a few million for the next 5 years of digging), so we have to be on our best behavior around them.  This certainly put a damper on man-thigh Monday (yes, the boys here enjoy rolling up their shorts to show off their pasty, white man-thighs).  We've also had to cut down on cursing, dirty jokes and most other shenanigans we so thoroughly enjoy.   The VIPs work in the grids, but don't really do anything.  One of them destroyed an entirely in-tact juglet the other day and I thought my supervisor was going to have a heart attack.  Mostly we try to stay out of their way so that the dig can continue to receive funding.
     We've also had a group from Hebrew University digging with us this week.  They came here to dig the Islamic-Crusader era ramparts, but ended up stumbling upon a Philistine rampart instead.  The Philistines were in Ashkelon roughly 1500 years before the Islamic-Crusader era.  Whoops. 
    This week has been one of insanity, exhaustion, but mostly fun.  I'm really sad that we only have one week left.  I'm going to miss digging much more than I ever thought I would.  I'm staying in Ashkelon this weekend to catch up on sleep and do some, much needed, relaxing.  With only seven more days in Ashkelon, I want to make the most of my time here.

From Sea to Shining Sea

At the bottom of the Snake Path

This weekend, the dig organized a trip to Masada, the Dead Sea and Qumron.  We woke up late (6:30a.m.!) on Friday morning and traveled to Masada.  On the two hour bus ride, I played with Lucy- the adorable 4 year-old daughter of our dig leader.  She liked to inform me that I had red hair.  We got to Masada at 9a.m. and by 9:30 we were on the Snake Trail up to the top.   As soon as I took out my camera, I found out that the battery was mysteriously dead (I charged it recently, I promise), so all photos are borrowed.  For those who don't know, Masada is an ancient fortress originally built by the Greek king of Judea, Herod the Great.  It was conquered by the Jews in 66CE who held it until the Romans conquered them around 72CE.  Masada is situated on top of a giant plateau in the middle of the Judean desert.  Hiking to the top at 9:30 on July 1 was a horrible idea.  It was so hot and so steep, the .5km hike took almost 45 minutes.  Finally making it to the top felt like such an accomplishment that it made the whole thing worth it.  After wandering around for an hour and a half (and catching our breath), we decided it would be a much better idea to take the cable car down. 

Delphine and Caroline at the top of the Snake Path

     Next, we went to the Dead Sea near Ein Gedi.  After hiking in the desert, one might think that a dip in the sea would be an excellent and refreshing idea.  Unfortunately, everyone on the dig is so thoroughly covered in cuts and mosquito bites that the Dead Sea mostly just burned.  At least, as one of my friends pointed out, it cauterized our wounds.  One of my friends got water in his eye and had to be led back to the shore by other dig members.  
    Thoroughly exhausted by this point, nobody was too excited to visit Qumron, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.  The two supervisors who were leading the trip gave us a whirlwind tour of the site.  It was interesting to see the finished product of an archeological dig.  It helped me feel that what I'm doing here in Ashkelon is actually important. 
    After we had visited Qumron, the bus dropped six friends and I off in Jerusalem, where we caught a sheirut (bus/taxi) to Tel Aviv.  When we got to Tel Aviv, we split into different groups- the girls all went to Kate's apartment (thanks again for letting us stay!) to shower and get ready for a night out.  We decided to meet everyone on the boardwalk to have dinner.  After some miscommunications and general tardiness, we eventually all found each other and had dinner near the marina.   Soon after, we met up with Kate and a couple of her friends and hung out at a bar on the beach.  It was a beautiful night and we all had a lot of fun.  We stayed out pretty late and crashed once we got back to Kate's apartment.  The next morning we woke up (I had two huge blisters on my feet, that I hadn't noticed the night before) and went to Benedict's for breakfast.  It was the most delicious meal.  I had eggplant and feta shakshuka and we all had mimosas to celebrate our friend Emma's birthday (and my mom's too).  We were on a sheirut back to Ashkelon by 1p.m. on Saturday and spent the rest of the day resting and relaxing.  It was a great weekend.
    Today we returned to digging.  I was working in, what I like to call, the hamster cage.  It's a Hellenistic bin about the size of a filing cabinet with the drawers pulled out.  I have scrapes all over my arms and legs from hitting the rock walls every time I tried to swing my pick axe.  I missed the luxuries of Tel Aviv. 

A West Bank Whirlwind

   Last weekend, my friends and I decided to travel to the West Bank to see how the other half lives.  Ten of us, mostly from grid 51, decided to stay in Jerusalem Friday night and then take the bus into the West Bank the following morning. 

    Jerusalem was a lot of fun.  We walked around the city without being attacked by men with canes!  We got ruggaluh at Marzipan and shawarma right outside of the Damascus Gate (that leads into the Old City).  Then we got a little crazy and went out (some of us in the same clothes we had worn to the pottery compound earlier that day).  It was a really fun night- even though three of the ten of us ended the night booting. 

The 10,000 y.o. tower in Jericho

     The next morning we met outside the Damascus Gate at 9a.m., hungover and tired.  Unfortunately, Josh was feeling so sick that he left and went back to Ashkelon.  The remaining 9 people crossed the border into the West Bank, which has absolutely no security.  We were dropped off on the side of the road so we could get a taxi to Jericho, the oldest city in the world.  Taxi drivers immediately began fighting about who was going to take us to Jericho.  It got a little intimidating as they were shouting louder and louder at each other in Arabic.  Finally, we settled into two cabs and traveled for about half and hour to Jericho.   The archeological site at Jericho was not very exciting.  Its main feature is a 10,000 year old tower (which actually is pretty cool) but there's really not much else there.  There were a lot of stray dogs, that looked more like wolves, which was fairly unsettling.  It was also ridiculously hot (at least 90 degrees).  By 10:30a.m., we were all melting and wanted to leave for Ramallah. 
We found the taxi drivers who took us to Jericho and asked them to take us to Ramallah.  After some haggling over the price, we started the hour long journey to Ramallah (about 20 minutes outside of Jerusalem). 
     It was the scariest drive of my life.  I thought I was going to die the entire time.  Not only were all of the mountainous roads from Jericho to Ramallah incredibly narrow, our drivers were going at unnatural speeds.  I felt like I was on the most dangerous roller coaster in the world.  The cab was silent because we all thought that if we opened our mouths to speak, we would vomit.  A few times during the ride I audibly gasped because I legitimately thought we were going to drive off of a cliff.   About 3/4 of the way through the journey our cab driver just started talking to himself and laughing hysterically.  That's when we really thought he was trying to kill us.   Even though they dropped us on the side of the highway (we asked to be dropped in the city center), we were all so thrilled to be out of those cabs, alive, we didn't care. 
  It took us another hour of wandering to find the city center (we missed a turn, which took us far away from anything).  By the time we actually reached the city center, we were grumpy, tired, hungry and still hungover.  And then we found heaven.  We wandered into a random restaurant that smelled good from the street.  After finding a table big enough to seat the nine of us, we ordered shawarma and sat in relative silence until it came.  First, they put a bunch of different salads on the table and some pita.  It all smelled and looked delicious.  Finally they brought out the chicken for our shawarma sandwiches and we devoured it all.  After we were fed, everybody was in a much better mood and we decided to explore Ramallah, the virtual capital of the West Bank, a little more. 

     We had heard from friends about a coffee place called Stars and Bucks, a Starbucks knockoff, that we simply had to try.  We found it in the city center (around the corner from the shawarma place) and hiked up the three flights of stairs to get into the shop.  Immediately we were reminded of home, the furniture and general ambiance of Stars and Bucks were perfect copies of Starbucks.  However, once we ordered our drinks (I had an ice coffee- which was topped with hot fudge and whipped cream) and they brought over a hookah to our table, we realized it was about as different from Starbucks as could be.  The drinks were delicious and the hookah was giant and smelled delicious.  We hung out there for about 45 minutes and then half of us decided to go to the Taybeh Brewery in Taybeh, Palestine.

A diagram of brewing beer at Taybeh

     The Taybeh Brewery is in a tiny Christian town about half an hour away from Ramallah.  They're a totally family run and operated business.  They took us on a little tour of their brewery (with freshly brewed beers in hand) and talked to us about the problems they've encountered with selling their beer in Israel and the U.S., but were excited that we were such big fans of their beer (a coveted item during hall beers).  We all left the brewery with merchandise in tow. 

A shipment of Taybeh headed to Japan

     After our visit to the brewery, we met up with the rest of our group at Stars and Bucks, had some mint lemonade (surprisingly delicious) and took the bus back to Jerusalem.  The border crossing back into Israel was a little more secure (they x-rayed our bags and glanced at our passports).  We arrived in Jerusalem around six, scarfed down some pizza and returned to Ashkelon (we had to be up at 4:30 the next morning). 
     It was an educational experience.  The West Bank was not nearly as scary as I thought it would be.  We never really felt the tension of the Israel-Palestine conflict.  No one tried to proselytize to us about sympathizing with the Palestinian plight.  It was not what I expected, in a good way.  I'm glad I went.  It helped me better understand the actual nature of the conflict and appreciate living in a (relatively) peaceful country.

Halfway

     Today is week 4, day 2.  We have officially made it past the halfway point and are now accustomed to digging and each other.   Last Saturday the first set of three weekers left and a new set arrived.  So far, everyone seems to be fitting in just fine.  We also switched squares.  Now I'm working in an ancient street and drain.  Everything we find is an odd greenish color due to sewage- it's lovely. 

Casey and Ben's fruit break shenanigans

     We've also settled into a routine here.  We wake up at 4:30 a.m., get ready and go to first breakfast, which usually consists of bread, butter, and coffee.  By 5, we're on the bus to the site (about a five minute ride).  We arrive at the pottery compound, take out all of our tools and carry them to the grid.  We dig until 9a.m., when we have second breakfast.  All three grids meet outside of grid 47 (where Roman columns are strewn about a field) for second breakfast, which usually consists of bread, cheese, veggies, and usually eggs of some kind.  By 9:30, we have to return to the grid to dig some more.  At 11a.m. we get fruit break, which generally consists of fruit and other food we stole from second breakfast.  Occasionally, we're rewarded with popsicles for fruit break if we've done something especially awesome.  I've found there's little I won't do for a popsicle.  We usually clean up around 12:30 and are on the bus back to the hotel by 1. 

Relaxing in the grid during fruit break

     After digging, there is nothing more refreshing than hall beers.   Supervisors and volunteers alike sit on the floor near the elevators to drink and relax.  It's a lot of fun and probably drives the hotel crazy, but it's great bonding time.  Afterwards we shower, eat lunch, and have some free time until 4 when we return to the pottery compound for pottery washing.  Nobody likes pottery washing.  It's probably one of the most mind numbing tasks.  We stand around tables and scrub all of the pottery we collected that day.  We have random conversations with each other and ask probing questions like "what's your biggest insecurity?"  or "what was the biggest lie you've ever told?"  Sometimes it feels like I'm taking a group psychology test.  After pottery washing, we return to the hotel for a lecture.  The lectures are usually pretty interesting, but everybody is so tired at this point that a lot of people fall asleep.  After lecture, we go to dinner- which tends to be leftovers from lunch. 
    By the end of the day we're all pretty wiped out.  Sometimes I'll go on a walk down to the beach with friends or go up to the roof where we like to hang out and watch the sunset.  Most nights I'm in bed before 9, preferably asleep by 8.  It's amazing how easily my sleep schedule has adjusted to the hours here.  Typically, we're asleep before the sun has totally set and awake before the sun is up.  It's a little backwards.  For all of the hard work, frustrations and minor injuries (I'm covered in cuts and bruises), I feel like my time here is flying by and I'm sad that we're already more than halfway through.

Adventures and Misadventures in Jerusalem

On Friday, myself and six of my friends decided to take a bus from Ashkelon to Jerusalem.  The bus left at 2:40.  We had been up since 4 a.m. and spent the day in the pottery compound (an outdoor pavilion with tons of pottery from the site) marking the pottery.  For eight hours we literally sat on stools and wrote in tiny lettering on tiny pieces of pottery.  Fortunately we had iPod speakers, so everyone became well aware of the fact that I do indeed know all of the words to "Ignition" by R. Kelly (whether they wanted to know about that or not...).  After sitting on that stool all day I felt a strange longing for my pick axe. 
But anyway, we finally arrived in Jerusalem at around 3:30 and decided to walk from the central bus station to the Old City, where we were staying.  It was a beautiful day and much cooler in Jerusalem than in Ashkelon, which was a nice break for us.  Along the way, we were snapping pictures on Jaffa Street, a main street leading to the Old City.  Here occurred our first adventure, or misadventure.  One of the girls I was with, Delphine, was taking pictures like everyone else, when, out of nowhere, an old man with a cane approaches her.  Delphine is about the size of my pinky (see picture below).  This man starts asking her for the picture, presumably that she took of him.  After she repeatedly tells him that she didn't take a picture he raises his cane as if to hit her.  At this point, our friend Mike intervenes and basically cowers over the man until he backs off.  Needless to say, it was pretty scary. 
Fortunately, our adventures did not continue on this unlucky path.  We continued walking on Jaffa Street, stopping at the shuk (open-air market) which houses my favorite bakery Marzipan.  We got chocolate rugelach that was fresh out of the oven.  It was still so hot we couldn't even pick it up at first.

Josh, Michael and Mike on the Cita

Eventually, we arrived in the Old City and checked into our hostel, the Citadel.  We were staying on the roof, which had an unbelievable view of the Dome of the Rock.  We decided to claim the corner of the roof facing the Dome of the Rock and spread out our stuff on five mattress pads(even though there were 7 of us), which we dubbed megabed,  and hoped that random articles of clothing and bottles of sunscreen would be good enough to save our spots. 

Mike, Caroline, and Emma on the roof of our hostel

We explored the Old City for a while, went to the Western Wall and walked around the marketplace.  We went out to dinner on Ben Yehuda street and hung out at a bar for most of the night.  By 11:30 (yes, we lead particularly thrilling lives) we were dead tired and decided to return to the hostel and go to sleep.  Lo and behold, there was a large, hairy man sleeping on a corner of megabed!  As we raced for spots as far away from this hairy stranger as possible, we arranged ourselves basically on top of each other on 3 1/2 mattress pads.  For seven people.  Uncomfortable does not begin to describe it.  If one of us moved, the other six would wake up.  The one benefit of sleeping so closely together was that it was freezing and none of us had thought to bring very warm clothing.  We were woken up at various points during the night: once by a plastic bag that had rolled onto mine and Emma's head, a second time, at 3:45am, for the Muslim call to prayer, a third time when Emma's phone alarm went off at 4:53am, and then pretty much every hour after that when church bells chimed.  It was not the most restful night. 
Regardless, we got up the next morning around 8am (very late for us).  We walked to the Mount of Olives and visited various churches along the way.  The mountain itself was tough to climb as it was more of a cliff face and less of a gradual slope.  When we visited the Church of Agony, where Jesus allegedly awaited his fate, we saw a service going on.  It wasn't a mass, but there was a man singing with a guitar and priests dressed in fancy robes performing some sort of ceremony.  None of us knew what was going on, but it was still very beautiful. 

The exterior of the Church of Agony

Inside the Church of Agony

Delphine and me at the Church of Agony

After we climbed up and down the mountain, had a delicious meal of shwarma or felafel from a street vendor, we took a taxi home and spent the rest of the day relaxing poolside at our hotel in Ashkelon.  The trip was a whirlwind, but a lot of fun.  I'm glad I went, even though I went to sleep at 7:30 Saturday night (to be up at 4am the following morning). 
   

The Pit

The view from the top of the pit

     So, by the middle of week one each member of my grid was assigned a square, a 10x10m portion of the grid.  My grid has three open squares, I was assigned to square 74.  Under the guidance of my supervisor Larry (who I affectionately call Lar Bear), each member of my square was assigned an area that would become our homes for the rest of our time in Ashkelon.  Whether because of his nickname or some other unknown offense, Larry assigned me to the bottommost region of our entire grid: the well.  Not only is there a virtual obstacle course to get in and out of the well, but it is also incredibly difficult to actually accomplish anything (like pick axing, shoveling, or sweeping)  because it is an incredibly small space.  Sometimes it feels as if I'm an animal at the zoo.  Other people in our grid enjoy standing at the top of the 20 foot drop into the well and laughing at the unfortunate well crew. 
     Strange things happen in the well.   I was given a new nickname- Ray-Ray, which pretty much everyone on the trip has started to call me.  From this nickname, we created an imaginary TV show called "Ray-Ray say say it's not okay-kay."  Think Jerry Springer: Excavation Edition.  Recently, my grid supervisor (Kate) has informed me that we will be getting a video camera on the site so we can film my TV show.   Great. 
    I spent the first few days cleaning out the well and articulating stones that, later, my beloved Lar Bear decided were unnecessary and ripped most of them out.  Again, great.  After that, though, I actually got to start excavating.  I was lucky enough to get a fine grid (a 1x1m square) that had lots of pottery sherds and bone fragments.  My fine grid was on the surface above the well (about 20 feet below everyone else)  and used to be a floor, which meant that it had the most material in it.  I didn't find anything that cool but I certainly found a lot.  I filled a whole bucket with shirds.  I also found some obsidian, which was very pretty and some blue glass from the Persian era.