A "rusty" discovery in the ancient ruins

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Before they added more buildings to the huge and ugly Holyland Towers in Jerusalem the Israel Antiquities Authority had to do the legally required dig before construction could begin.

Here's me in hardhat, back in 2008,   about to go down  to one of the dozens of Canaanite shaft tombs we discovered.
The site turned out to be a Canaanite cemetery from 4,000 years ago.

Here in the back you see a worker pulling up buckets of earth which would then be poured into the sifter.
Look! Our excavation surveyor lady is handing a find to our Arab foreman!  What is it?!

It is metal, turned greenish and encrusted with the "rust and ruins" of the ages!
From the Middle Bronze Age, actually.
Our bone expert was kind enough to make a nice red display "table" by putting his arm under his T shirt.
Enlarge the photo a few times; can you guess what it is?
It's a TOGGLE PIN!

The ancients did not have buttons so they used garment pins to keep their cloak fastened, as illustrated in this drawing of a lady from Mari.
This reconstructed toggle pin at Jerusalem's Bible Lands Museum has cameos (i.e. good luck charms) hanging from it, with a Mesopotamian cylinder seal at the bottom.
It was a way to wear your important objects.
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See more of our work at the Holyland dig here.
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Visit City Daily Photo to see how bloggers are interpreting our Rust and Ruins theme day in their own countries.
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Looking out from the grave

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Looking out from the ancient Canaanite shaft tomb they had been excavating, workers come up for some fresh(er) air and a coffee break.
They were two of my forty Arab colleagues at the Holyland Park dig in Jerusalem in 2008.

I miss those good old days of digging at the Canaanite graveyard. See more posts about our finds and our fun here.
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The worldwide group of City Daily Blog bloggers are now posting for Dec. 1 Theme Day: Looking Out.
Take a look!
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Ancient mystery object

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The thrill of discovery!
What will the mystery object turn out to be?

My colleagues here are freeing it from earth that covered it for some 4,000 years.
We excavated many such Canaanite shaft tombs at the Holyland site in Jerusalem.

See other posts about the site, just click on my label below, "archaeology-Holyland."
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City Daily Photo bloggers have our monthly Theme Day today on the subject Mystery Object.
Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.
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Excavating

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Exciting excavations for ABC Wednesday meme.

I work from time to time at digs in Jerusalem (as a paid fieldworker, not an archaeologist).
This one was at Holyland Park.

On top of a high hill we uncovered Canaanite shaft tombs from 4,000 years ago.

Canaanites were buried in small caves at the bottom of the entrance shafts, with jugs of provisions "for the journey."

Skulls and skeletons.

Beautifully shaped, unusual piece of pottery.

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For more pictures and stories about the exciting excavations, please click on the ARCHAEOLOGY label below.
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Liftoff

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{ The truck pictures are more impressive when enlarged. Go on, click and enjoy the details! }

The System: Every archaeological excavation needs some form of headquarters in the field.
A lockable place to store the tools and equipment, with a table where the foreman can do a little paperwork and maybe eat his lunch. A shipping container--perfect!

Here's the inside of ours at my latest dig in Jerusalem:

The contractor hires fieldworkers like me and supplies the Israel Antiquities Authority with diggers, as needed, for the IAA's many digs. The contractor also takes care of the logistics (in consultation with the archaeologist in charge, of course).
So on the last day of our dig, right after all the forty workers had boarded their mini-buses to be driven back to East Jerusalem, the truck showed up.

It was an amazing, quick, ONE-man show! He hooked the chains onto the container.

He scampered up, then down, the container as easily as a monkey.

Strapped to his back are the controls for the hydraulic crane.

He leaned on the box to keep the proper angle,

then hoisted it and maneuvered it onto the truck.
And off they drove, one man, one container.
Job done. Such a simple system!

T-i-m-b-e-r !

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As you may have surmised, we completed the archaeological excavation a few weeks ago. It is good to have some time off before the next dig starts. It is still so hot; summer goes on and on. But for the sake of closure, here are some scenes from the final day.

What we did was the required salvage dig before construction of yet another highrise apartment building could start. The building contractor, anxious to begin, wasted no time in sending in his crew to cut down the one tree we had on the site.


The thick limbs were sawed up and carted away as firewood.

Our shade netting had been taken down and then the shade of the tree was also gone.
The direct sun was SO hot as we raised clouds of dust, sweeping clean every meter of rock with broom heads.
Stone always has to be swept clean before archaeologists take the final photos.

By noon our guys were literally dancing with joy that our work was at an end.

Break time at the dig

We archaeology fieldworkers start at 6:30 and finish work at 2:30.
Meal time is half an hour, at 10:30. A little break comes at 1:00.

Especially for the men who have been curled up excavating a small burial cave or for those of us who have been kneeling or bent over all day, the 15-minute break is a chance to stretch out our own old bones.

About a dozen of the forty Muslim workers go down to wash up and then have public prayer while the rest of us stay up on the site and rest.


At meal time we set up civilized tables and chairs.

A few weeks ago (before Ramadan!) I brought little pastries and the friends clapped hands and sang Happy Birthday to me in Arabic.

One spokesman stood up and addressed me, articulating one blessing after another for my new year of life.
We looked eye to eye, I listened attentively, then we shook hands. I was very moved.

This year's birthday celebration was unusual and very happy.
I mean, how often do you have forty nice men at your party?

Dig and ye shall find

Back by popular demand--archaeology.
Our latest dig, at a Canaanite burial ground in what is today Jerusalem, has turned out to be rich in finds, mainly clay vessels, human and animal bones and teeth, and a few artifacts (posted earlier here).
Here are some of the most interesting examples of the Middle Bronze Age pottery.

Yes, sometimes you just have to carefully poke with Phillips screwdrivers. And patience.



You feel pride and excitement in succeeding to bring out a perfect, unbroken 4,000-year-old juglet.

Whatever was placed in the pithos (food, for example) when it was buried along with the dead, as provisions for the journey, is gone now. Replaced by earth usually.

I got to empty one pithos, like this man is doing above, very carefully and slowly.
Finally I had to stick my arm in to reach the last of the dirt. A funny feeling, not seeing or knowing what might be hidden in there--something that bites maybe?!
I had to search each handful and found tiny little bones, of a mouse probably.

Two emptied, brushed, tagged pithoi and one happy young excavator.

Archaeologist in the sky

Way up on the scaffold, see the man with the camera?
That's our boss, fearless Zvi.
What won't an archaeologist do for a good photo of his excavation site!

Many other angles on the sky over at Sky Watch Friday.

Go over and crane your neck with us.

Femur, fibula, and frontal bones

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Hope this won't make anyone freak out, but my F words for today are femur, fibula, frontal bones, and funerary practices. Of Canaanites who were buried here on the outskirts of Jerusalem some 4,000 years ago.

Last week, to the excitement of all, we uncovered a skeleton in the burial cave I and three others were digging in. Here you can see the skull, arm bones, and ribs.

Eventually four skulls were discovered.

Can you imagine holding a Canaanite child's head in your hands and poking at the earth that filled it?
At first the bones are left in situ to be photographed, measured and sketched. Then the bones go to the lab to be weighed, measured, photographed, documented, etc.

Funerary objects came next. After removing the fragile bones we could start digging to look for funerary objects like pottery or the person's personal possessions such as jewelry or weapons.
At the time of burial, the clay vessels would have been full of food, drink, and perfumes.
All these the Canaanites believed were necessary for the journey to the netherworld.

The 100+ participants in ABC Wednesday have dug up different F words for their photos. Check out a few here.

The Teahouse of the August Moon

As I climbed the hill to work this morning, the round August moon was just setting behind the minaret of Beit Tsafafa. With the bright sun on it, the moon was so pale I didn't even try to photograph it.

Instead, I went for documentation of "the teahouse of the August moon."
At every dig it is some kind of ritual first thing in the morning and many times throughout the workday to light the Primus, boil water, and make strong Turkish coffee.
Or sometimes it is sweet sweet tea with leaves of mint or merimiyeh or babonag to give the wonderful aroma and taste.
Each little work group seems to have their own portable "kitchen" set up somewhere on a rock in a corner or a niche.
You are welcome to drink, but bring your own glass.

The Bedouin (like the man on the left) have a nice blessing when they serve you coffee (in what used to be the hospitality tent).
The Arabic means literally "Coffee always," meaning something like May we always drink coffee together [in peace].

More about the Bedouin coffee drinking as a symbol of harmony and trust HERE.

Sunday, back to work

As you may know, I am working at a salvage excavation in Jerusalem these days.
The present site has at least twenty shaft tombs in which the Canaanites buried their dead some 4,000 years ago, in the Middle Bronze Age.

Today's best find, to my eyes, was this unusual vessel.

It was down in the burial cave at the end of this shaft.
Here our one Bedouin worker is being pulled out, no ladder!
Behind him is Haj. I don't know his name because all the workers (Moslems) simply call him Haj. It is the title of respect given to a pilgrim after he has made the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Canaanite cemetery

Welcome to our bloggers' ABC Wednesday, today featuring words beginning with letter C.

In connection to the excavations where I've been working for a few months, we have already talked about cranes, our container storeroom, a cat, and a cow's tooth.
Today we add a cheerful element of the workplace:

CAMARADERIE!

Issa, Abu Kamal, Abu Samer, and Yusef--four of my thirty workmates.

"C" is also for CANAANITE vessels in a burial CAVE.
Here Rahed has just discovered some Middle Bronze Age pottery quite high up in his cave.

By the end of the day (Monday) he had discovered ten (!) jugs in that one little area.

Before we removed them, our director, archaeologist Zvi, used the big camera to shoot the official photo of the finds.

The Canaanites lived in the land more than 4,000 years ago.

Another dig, another dollar

Today we started a new salvage dig, not far from where we dug two weeks ago.
Before any new building goes up, the land has to be investigated to see if there are any antiquities below surface worth saving.

Our two areas are where the men are and one up one level, behind that old tower.

This time we must wear green vests and hardhats so the construction workers and the crane operator will hopefully remember we are down there.

The container containing all our equipment arrived at 6:30 this morning.
One of the 30-some workers planted the flag of the Reshut HaAtikot, the Israel Antiquities Authority.
All of the men are Arabs, so I tactfully did not photograph the young man putting up the flag of Israel.

In the foreground is the black netting that was being set up to give us some semi-shade from the hot sun.

I'll let you know what we find. You never know!