Three posts in one day (if you count the one I wrote last night and posted this morning before leaving for the site)! I hope I don't overwhelm you! I just wanted to quickly share tonight's sunset. At least the latter part of it. We did not get to enjoy the full sunset tonight as we were attending a lecture about the last ten years of work here. I am positive, had we been here, it would have been spectacular. It was so clear all day today.
...but somebodies got to do it. 
Today was one of the clearest we've had on the dig. The sun came up, early, and the moon stayed visible late into the morning.
As we continued to excavate our square (translated: we found more...and more...and more...and more rocks) the day became warm, and then hot. But their is beauty in that heat. From the top of the mountain where Hippos is located you get a fantastic view of the Galilee. Perhaps this is the "city on a hill" which "cannot be hidden." To imagine the forum square in all of it's glory, the churches we are uncovering...people walking down the Decumanus Maximus (main East/West Road), it's absolutely amazing. People lived here...and we are uncovering their lives. We can only imagine what the city would have looked like when they walked the streets, and if it's anything like I imagine it would have been amazing. 
Main Cistern in the Forum with Tiberias in the background. 
The South side of the Sea of Galilee.
Galilee with Mount Tabor (I believe) in the background. Mount Tabor is the traditional site of the Transfiguration.
Cameron's Log: Day Six...
Found more big rocks today. At one point counted 21 awaiting removal. 
Uncovered some large stones, looked like the makings of a wall. Unfortunately there was little evidence to support this and Dr. Schuler suspected it was a "floating" wall, meaning it was built later by squatters or had fallen rather suspiciously...
Upon removing some stones discovered there were, indeed, more underneath! A wall...put back the stones...
Found an interesting piece of marble tile toward the end of the day. Seems to have some kind of paint on it. During pottery washing we discovered another piece that fits like a puzzle and has the same red on it...
It has been fun to work in the same square as Andrea. Too bad she gets called away to draw, and will do this even more in the coming two weeks I am sure.
For those who claim she "doesn't get dirty," here she is working hard. 
It should be mentioned, this post was written on Sunday July 12th after the dig day ended. However, since we had just posted commentary on our trip to Jerusalem I did not want to overwhelm you, the reader, with so many posts in such a short time...
Cameron and I have divided up the Jerusalem trip into two sections... so you should be reading mine first (if you desire chronological order). And here is how it all went down:
Andrea and I made the decision to each post about a different portion of our trip to Jerusalem. Andrea got the first half, so I will be handling part two. As I am writing this before she has even begun, I hope to pick up almost at the exact point where she will have left off...
Having indulged our craving for shwarma we made our way into the Jewish Quarter of the City and headed for the area surrounding the Western (Wailing) Wall. When we arrived at the wailing wall we entered a large archaeological park where one can see the ruins of the many structures that once surrounded the temple area in Jerusalem. The most foreboding structure is, of course, the temple platform itself which has gone through many facelifts over the years. As you can see, the stones from the period when Herod extended the platform are quite daunting...
Considering that Andrea is 5'2" you can see that the stones are nearly a meter tall.
And, according to the person at the end of this line, she wasn't even touching the end of the stone! Rest assured, if we found any of these on Hippos they would stay where they were...
As you walk to the Eastern part of the park you enter an area where one can be assured Jesus walked. The stairs leading up to the Temple. Unfortunately, we were not able to visit this area because it borders Al Aqsa Mosque, and it was closed so that the Muslim Holy Day was not disturbed.
We left the archaeological park, and the Old City for a time and walked up the Mount of Olives. This walk is incredible, for many reasons. First and foremost, the Mount of Olives is a remarkably, and surprisingly, steep hill (video will soon be posted on You Tube). There is, however, a reward for the labor of walking up the hill - the view. 
Once on top of the Mount of Olives we stopped at the Church of the Ascension where Jesus' Ascension into Heaven is commemorated. The church is now a mosque, however, the Muslims who control it allow Christians to come in and see the place. After leaving from there we made our way back down the Mount of Olives and walked the traditional path of the Via Delarosa, the path which commemorates Jesus on His way to the Cross and, ultimately, to His death. Along the way there are many markers denoting the traditional stations of the Cross - the ending point is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
After this we had the rest of the evening free to shop or go back to the guest house. The next day would bring even more sights.
We got up early on Saturday, met our bus, and headed for Bethlehem to see the Church of the Nativity. 
This Church is one of three built by Saint Helena (Constantine's Mother) and commemorates the Birthplace of Christ. Over the years it has changed hands many times. As you can see from this picture the door has gotten smaller and smaller over the years. This change came because the church was being stripped of all its marble for use in other areas. 
The inside is spotted with incredibly ornate decorations. In the front of the church there is an area called the grotto where one can go down and, supposedly, touch the spot where Jesus was born and where he was laid in the manger.
After finishing up at the Church of the Nativity we had time for shopping at the various Olive Wood stores and for lunch...we had more shwarma...
Having thoroughly stuffed ourselves (literally - I had two shwarma), we met the bus and headed for the Herodion (or Herodium...or Herodyon...depending on which sign you read). This was honestly one of my favorite sites...the sheer magnitude of the fortress is remarkable and the magnitude of what Herod accomplished can be seen on a grand scale. The site is one of Herod's many wilderness fortresses which he built to help protect his kingdom. It is also in the Judean Wilderness...where the shepherds would have been "keeping watch over their flocks," as Dr. Schuler pointed out...
The wilderness surrounding Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
The main tower of the Herodion.
Top plan of the Herodion.
Herod's Tomb?
The Palace at the Herodion, complete with swimming pool.
As Andrea always points out we were "running where Jesus walked," and what a great run it was. Now we are back at the Kibbutz. As I write this we have already finished a full day of work and are getting ready for another...
I know Andrea just posted to say we'd be back tomorrow with pictures and posts, but I felt the urge to post at least one photo to pique your interest...
This is the FIRST picture I took on the camera when we got to the Old City in Jerusalem. It is Saint Mark's Road - the guest house where we stayed was just down the street.
Tomorrow we start again...dark and early...until then. Enjoy.
Jerusalem was GREAT! After I go through pictures and videos tomorrow, you'll hear more from me, in the mean time, I just wanted to "check in" because I'm sure you missed me, and now you know we're back safe and ready to dig another week! Come back for pictures and stories tomorrow!
What a treat! Two posts in one day! I guess I'm back "on" with my blogging... I knew inspiration would come sooner or later.
There's an episode of Seinfeld that revolves around the Costanza Family's holiday tradition called "Festivus." Essentially it is Frank Costanza's invented holiday which the family celebrates around Christmas time. Some traditions include the "festivus pole," the "airing of grievances" (I GOT A LOT OF PROBLEMS WITH YOU PEOPLE) and the "feats of strength," which means someone has to wrestle Frank... Today we weren't wrestling any geriatric veterans, but what we were wrestling were gigantic basalt and limestone rocks. 
Inside the square...many of these await our arrival tomorrow morning and have to be removed before we can do more digging...
Using the "Arny Net" to remove a large basalt stone...
Andrea, who is pulling double duty as a blogger on this (our personal blog) and the "official" dig blog (Dig It) posted a great You Tube video today of what it truly takes to get these monsters out of the square - they aren't light, although the limestone is much more manageable than the basalt.
Thus far I have been incredibly happy with our square, and with our team in F8. We've gotten a lot of work done, especially when you consider the fact that when we started to dig in our square we had to work through at least a half meter of debris that was dumped on the site last year. Now we are nearly a meter down from the original ground level, we've found (fingers crossed) a wall and a door frame and we are only about a half meter above the street level. All-in-all it has been a quite eventful week.
Tomorrow is our last day for the workweek. When we get done on the mountain we will come down, eat a quick lunch, finish packing for Jerusalem and then leave the Kibbutz by 2:30. We will be touring on Friday and Saturday, and will head back on Saturday night just in time to eat a picnic dinner (Saturday is Shabbat and the dining hall is closed) and then to bed to get ready for more digging on Sunday! We will not have our computers with us in Jerusalem, and even if we did we would not have time (or internet access) to do any posting of anything. So, we will have to get you up to speed when we get back...Fear not - we will return to our regularly scheduled programming shortly (and there may be a short post tomorrow before we leave, but I make no promises).
I'll leave you with this...this morning we saw the moon set and the sun rise while we were on the dig and both were quite spectacular.
Andrea's camera ended up underneath her ice-cold water bottle and when we took it out of the pack it was a little foggy...it created a neat effect on this photo however.
The sun rise...thankful for the cloud cover (it did not last until breakfast today, we were not nearly as spoiled.
There are only 5 people working in our square - Arny (our fearless leader, whose first year here was also my first year, so we go way back), Cameron (you know who he is), Eric and Will (here with the Concordia Irvine group) and me. The disadvantage our group has is that Arny gets called away occasionally to do survey work (mostly at the end of the day), and I get called away to do drawings (which has thus far been mostly at the end of the day, as well, but as more is revealed, I will spend less and less time digging and more and more time measuring and drawing). However, even with this "handicap" of being left sometimes with only three workers in the square, much dirt has been moved these past 4 days, as you have probably learned from Cameron's posts. What is more impressive is how many big rocks have been moved by these boys, and how far they have to move them (especially up) as the dirt gets lower and lower. And so, as I said, I believe Cameron's mom would be proud of how hard he is working and how many big rocks he can move (and his dad can use this information to get any yard work done at home, perhaps) - and I'm sure that while Cameron is proud of his "rolling-stones" skills, he is probably even more proud of the fact that he got a college degree and doesn't have to do this for a living.
I haven't quite gotten into my groove yet. My posts are sparse and uninteresting thus far, and I keep hoping to make them better. Maybe I haven't adjusted to being here quite yet, maybe I am trusting that Cameron will take care of life on the blog-front, maybe I've been here too many times to be inspired by everyday things that we do here anymore? ... Nah! I think it's just a temporary "out-of-order" and I will be back on track soon. In the mean time... I'd like to leave you with the most important rule on the dig site: STAY HYDRATED!!!
Before we left we took our nephews and niece to the park and the zoo. At one point we were "racing" and my youngest nephew kept singing "First is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the treasure chest." Now, I remember this rhyme from when I was young, however we used to say "third is the one with the hairy chest." In the context of the dig so far I have to say I like his version better, and it seems much more appropriate as we made some neat finds today in our square. It should also be noted that the first day was not necessarily "the worst" and the second was not necessarily "the best," so all that really needs to be taken into account is the fact that, in respect to the first week, today was somewhat of a "treasure chest." Did you get all that?
The day started just like the first two days...cloudy, and somewhat comfortable for working in. The sun stayed away until breakfast, so we waited until then to put up our sunshade. Even before this we made a cool find - a piece of braided glass, probably some sort of ornamental piece, we will have to wait and see if we hear anything more about it.
After breakfast we made two more finds; a (formerly) round stone flattened on both sides. One of the sides had a groove cut into it. At some point it had been broken as one of the sides that should have been round was flat. There are still some questions as to what it is, or was used for, but the thought is that it might have been some kind of mortar stone. The other find, which came right at the end of the day, was a piece of a grinding stone. The stone was smooth and had been worked into a round shape. There was also a "foot" attached to it. At one point it probably would have had four feet to stand on...
The "wonderful" thing about all of these finds is the break from work that generally comes along with them. In some cases, most specifically with the important items, Kristina (the Assistant Director and Small Finds Registrar for the dig) has to come over and take field notes about positioning, etc. At the same time Dr. Schuler comes over to way in on what it may be and to photograph the item where it was.
In other news, we have been working this week with Arny (a dig veteran) and two guys from Concordia University Irvine, Eric and Will. Eric and Will have been a lot of fun to get to know and to work with. The have dubbed our group "Arny's Army" and come in every day humming the theme from The A-Team...
This post has gotten rather long, but I wanted to address a couple of comments from the past days. First, I changed the permissions on Flickr so that you should be able to look at all sizes of any given picture. Second, I will do my best to post photos, but I can't make any promises. It will depend on whether or not I remember to take some while we are up on the site, it's not always the easiest thing to do...
I remember when we were here three years ago...the clouds in the morning were fleeting and the air at the dig site was generally calm. Thus far on the dig we have had rather mild weather in comparison. The clouds hung around and kept things nice and "cool" until nearly breakfast time, meaning we had nearly 3 good hours of work in the morning with almost comfortable conditions!
After breakfast the sun came out and it was torture, apart from the wind. The wind, which I never remember feeling much of on the dig. However, some could argue that I spent much of my time in a cistern and have no business commenting on the windiness of the dig. So, I will leave it up to you, the reader, to decide whether or not I am a trusted source.
In addition to the wind on the site there has been a constant wind moving east across the Sea of Galilee which I can say with some certainty was not "the norm" when we were here before. It makes life easier on the Kibbutz...and makes the Sea of Galilee, which is MUCH lower than three years ago, quite choppy.
In other news, my square, F8, was covered with debris from previous years when we first opened it yesterday. Throughout the day today we worked toward removing this fill in order to get down to the previous ground level. By the end of the day I would estimate we had about a quarter of a meter (everything is metric here, you will just have to get used to it) left to remove. We also found what looks like a doorway on the south side of the square - we should begin true excavation of the square tomorrow, so an update on the doorway (and possible room attached) could be forthcoming before the end of this week.
Food For Thought: How crazy do you have to be to pay (good) money to "volunteer" to work hard for 7 hours a day? (I was going to say "all day" but since we work from 5 - 12 it didn't seem quite right)
It's amazing how very "at home" I feel at this kibbutz - coming on this trip 3 previous years will do that to a person, I guess. The best part, though, is within the first few days of returning, actually being recognized by people here. Ephrat is the woman who works to provide all volunteer diggers/"archaeologists" housing, food, laundry services, etc. for the month of the dig. If there is a problem, question or concern, she is the lady with all the answers. This afternoon at lunch, she came over and welcomed me back and congratulated Cameron and me on getting married. At dinner, she came over again and said it was a wonderful thing and stated, "I feel like we have played a part in your romance here." Although she thought we met on the dig (when we were both here 3 years ago), after we told her we were already dating by that time, she still insisted that this place has a history in us and she was glad to be a part of it and that it is a "wonderful thing." Well... she's not wrong! I suppose this place is pretty important to us, and I am very happy to be back here now sharing the whole experience with Cameron.
Day one has come...and gone.
I awoke...early...at 3:00 AM, and was unable to get back to sleep before we met the bus at 4:45 AM. Similar to the first day of the dig three years ago, we spent much of the time before breakfast clearing the sight of loose rubble and vegetation that has grown over the past year. We also plotted out the squares (typically 5 meter by 5 meter areas) where teams will be working. There are so many people on site in these first two weeks that Dr. Schuler has opened up five squares to begin. As for Andrea and I, we will be in Square F-8. Although, very soon Andrea will be called upon to draw all kinds of rocks. I'm still impressed by the way she is able to focus all of her energy into her hand...
It is nearly 9 PM here, past bedtime for archaeologists...
So, here's my food for thought: 
I would recommend going HERE to get a bigger and better view...
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