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.