Sheltering diggers from Israel's sun

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City Daily Photo bloggers share a Theme Day today about SHELTER.
As the only Israeli in the group I felt obliged to post about my bomb shelter, and how "protected rooms/mamadim"  are now required by law,  but it was too depressing.
So I am showing you the happy topic of archaeology instead!
The shade cloth that is put up daily over the squares we are digging in provides merciful shelter from the merciless sun. 
Just like an air raid shelter, it's hard to live without it (literally!).

Here you see the temporary shelter being raised over the excavation at Tel Yarmouth.
By the way, the rope the Bedouin worker is pulling is called a meitar in Hebrew, and from there comes the name of my town in the desert, Meitar.  It is the rope which allows you to "enlarge the space of your tent" as advised in Isaiah 54:2.

The top photo of me swinging the pickax at the 2009 Tiberias dig was taken by volunteer Gretchen Cotter.
She made a nice little video about working eight hours a day in the hot sun, and there you can see just how simple it is to put up the sun shade (IF you know what you're doing).
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Check out the other city bloggers' shelters at City Daily Photo.
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Dig fun

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Thanks to veteran volunteer Gretchen C., we finally have some photo proof that I really do dig.
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And Gretchen made a fine 7-minute video called "Digging Rocks" about archeology volunteers' life. You can watch it at her Facebook group, Tiberias-Excavation.

When you dig in the earth long enough, you eventually find something.

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But we are not allowed to reveal any new discoveries. The archaeologists in charge have the right to first publication, of course.

Every dig season (2 seasons per year at Tiberias) we get a new T shirt.

This newest one's theme is "Get hooked on Tiberias!!!"

If several dozen of us are walking around with this on our back, I take that as a sign that posting a picture of the find is now OK.

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Ta-daa!

Here is Area Supervisor Yuli modeling the original chain when it emerged from the dirt last autumn!

It is part of the metal chain on which hung the mosque lamps over a thousand years ago.

It is, after all, an Early Islamic Period mosque that we are excavating.

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You can see a picture of a newer, simpler mosque lamp for sale at Christies' here. But it shows how the chains are attached to loops in the lamp.
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That's my sometimes-dig-world for That's My World Tuesday.

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Roman theater in Tiberias!

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A real revelation awaits you for R Day at ABC Wednesday--a recently uncovered Roman theater!

All photos are clickable.

Above you see, going from right to left, the Sea of Galilee, the southern shoreline of hotels of modern Tiberias, the dig at which I recently volunteered, and in the foreground a different dig (not mine) which is being done by paid workers for the Israel Antiquities Authority.

After my group of volunteers and staff had worked down below at our site from 5:30 until 13:00, we walked up (in the intense heat) to visit the other dig going on on the slope of Mt. Berenice.

We were welcomed and guided by one of the archaeologists in charge.

Look at this!! Those lucky ducks are working on a Roman theater!
The Romans began building Tiberias in 18 C.E. and the oldest parts of the theater belong to that time.

Off to the right, under the black shade net, was a later structure (3rd-4th century) whose mosaic floor survived, complete with a Greek dedicatory inscription.

Four rows of seats remain in good shape.

The staircase up to the auditorium (where the public sits) is a much later addition, from Byzantine times.

There was room to seat at least 5,000 spectators.

The present-day mayor of Tiberias has big plans to turn the theater into a much-needed venue for big performances. He will use the 22 million shekels that Ehud Olmert gave in 2006 to encourage the citizens of the city. In the summer of 2006 missiles fired from Lebanon were exploding all over the Galilee region, and the people really needed some encouragement.

Our guide the archaeologist is also a restorer. He marveled at the fact that he had no restoration work to do on the perfect floor of the orchestra, 18 meters in diameter, paved with limestone flagstones.

What you see above is the crack made by a big earthquake.

I'm not sure which earthquake. Tiberias is over 200 meters below sea level and sits on the bottom of the Great Rift Valley, scene of many recorded quakes over the last 2,000 years. The last big one was in 1837, very destructive.

You see a hole at the base of the stage? There were several of them in a semi-circle on one side of the orchestra. Someone had an idea that maybe they were for fence-posts, and that the fence enclosed wild animals. Something like gladiators??

The impressive rounded outer wall of the theater is from the local black basalt.

All of this was so well preserved because it was 15 meters below ground less than a year ago.

Covered by alluvium, a landslide from the quarry higher up the hill, and spillover of garbage with which the Municipality had filled the big hole made by the quarrying.

Great progress has been made in the excavations which began only last January.

Well yeah, where there is funding, work can go fast forward.

The site is not open to the public at all, yet.

Seeing the Roman theater was a great field trip for our group.

Now if only we could know and see who had belonged to these two sandaled feet discovered at the site . . . .

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More information here although Haaretz newspaper title mistakenly calls it an amphitheater (which is round or oval, like a stadium). Ours is a theater, open to the north.

And the official report from the Israel Antiquities Authority, with some aerial photos, is here.

To see how the theater was barely visible, in a photo from 2006, I recommend going to Bible Places Blog.

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Simplicity

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The Tiberias dig is over but I don't want to leave the subject without showing you where I slept (or tried to) for several weeks.
For a big smile you should really click on the first photo.

It is the backside of my hotel/hostel, part of which had been torn off!
Fortunately construction of the new addition, the loud pouring of cement, started only on the evening I left.

The front is a little better, with some of the Old Tiberias basalt stone.
My dormitory room was on the top floor.

I grabbed the single bed on the side and let the backpacker girls have the four close-to-each-other beds. New roommates came and went; big turnover.

One day a big windstorm brought down the ceiling panel in our bathroom. Luckily the shower curtain rod caught it.

Yep, conditions were spartan.

The "grown-ups," the mostly older volunteers who came to the dig from abroad, stayed in the nicer hotel just up the street. But they were willing and able to pay for it. We had lunch and dinner at their hotel.

It was in the 90s F (low 40s C) most of the time, even in October-November. Most of the young folks in my room were anti-airconditioning. With the windows open, you could hear traffic on the busy streets below all night.

But when you have to rise at 4:00 a.m. you learn to sleep through almost anything.

The view to the south was the old cemetery with tombs of basalt.

A post on that is planned.

I spent lots of time hanging out the window, savoring the different moods of Tiberias, in haze, in sun, once even in rain.

The old Greek Orthodox monastery was nice to look at. I even managed to get inside the church once (a post will follow). The old monk does not open the gate very often.

The Sea of Galilee was right across the street. Here is a rare clear view of the Golan Heights on the eastern shore of the lake.

Tiberias attracts many Israeli and foreign tourists and pilgrims.

From my simple dorm room I could see the real hotels. So many, so big. Too big.

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I miss the old days when we dig volunteers used to sleep as a crew, all in big tents or in the former stable of an old monastery or in straw bungalos or in a big old kibbutz house.

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Dancing at the dig site

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The month-long fall season of our excavation in Tiberias ended last week.
On Thursday we were digging from 5:30 until 13:00, then a little snack and several hours of pottery washing. We rushed back to the hotel for a quick shower, then walked back to the site for our evening FAREWELL PARTY.

Roi, the dig administrator, took on the role of Grill Master. Hot dogs, chicken wings, and skewers of meat and chicken hearts.
The portable gas-fed Weber grill worked wonders.

There was lots of posing, e.g. my area supervisor Asaf and me.

Our very young and capable staff: Katia, Shulamit, Yuli, and Asaf.

The men are the paid workers, Bedouin from northern Israel.

Dig director Dr. Katia Cytryn-Silverman presented a certificate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to each volunteer.

After the meat, salads, pita, humus, tehina, wine, beer, and Coke, this volunteer married couple brought out a birthday cake.

The younger Bedouin gathered off to the side. One man sang while another played a double flute-type instrument that has been know in the Middle East since antiquity.

The flute sounded like a bagpipe minus the bag.
Click on the photo and you'll see the boy's cheeks full of air.

The old-time music really got our blood racing! Everyone was clapping to the beat and the Bedouin danced the debka.

Here is a very short video for you to get an idea of the music. Like it?

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Pottery washing in a Roman bathhouse

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P is for POTTERY washing.
Please take a look at other P words and pictures at ABC Wednesday.

At the Tiberias dig we normally wash potsherds two afternoons a week, under the semi-porous black shade cloth you see above.

But rain was falling Friday morning, making digging impossible. So we did pottery washing instead, in the only covered structure around--a 4th century Roman bathhouse.

So well-built is was, that it functioned as a bathhouse for 800 years.

The roof put up by the antiquities people in the 20th century to protect the colored mosaic floors already has holes.

Sa'id is the watchman who sleeps at the site every night for the whole month of the dig, rain or shine. During the day he does archaeology with us.

Ten hired Bedouins also work at the dig.

See the buckets lined up? We were catching run-off from the roof to use as our clean water in which to brush the shards.

Most of the volunteers spread out and work in silence.

Hmm, pottery washing as a meditative practice?

But the young people sat in a side room of the bathhouse and no doubt had a good conversation.

Sometimes I wonder what the Romans would think if they could hear and see us modern folks working in their buildings. Maybe they can . . .

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BTW, for readers of previous posts who asked how to join a dig, I added some links in yesterday's Comments. Hope to see you in the field someday!

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A taste of archaeology

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Welcome to That's My World Tuesday meme.
For the past few weeks my world has been an archaeological expedition in Tiberias.
Tiberias sits in the Great Rift Valley, 212 meters or 606 feet below sea level.

The best part of a dig is the camaraderie that develops between volunteers.

These two nice girls from Quebec stayed in my hostel dorm room the first night.
They were touring the Lower Galilee, but when they heard about the dig they immediately jumped on the chance to dig in the dirt and the hot sun for a week. They camped out at the site.

So young and already off to see the Holy Land with only a tent and a small backpack. Chapeau!

Once in a while and in carefully selected spots it is kosher to go down quickly with a digger/bagger/backhoe.

This photo is in the dawn light of 5:39 a.m.

But my favorite way to move earth (after breaking it with a pickaxe) is with a big heavy flat hoe
called a turia.
I suspect the Arabic names of most of our archaeology tools entered Hebrew when the early Israeli pioneers learned them from the Arab farmers, who used them for cultivating the land.

Breakfast comes at 9 o'clock. Three or four tables are set with lots of healthy food--salads, cheeses, tuna, eggs, humus, tehina, yogurt. The Americans among us like to make "Reese's Pieces" by spreading a pita with peanut butter and chocolate spread.

In the picture above, Katia, our dig director, presents T shirts and certificates to the volunteers who had finished their stint of service.

This year's T shirt features an ostracon, a potsherd with writing on it, discovered at the site. The writing is in Arabic. One of the things we are excavating is a mosque from the Early Islamic period.

The front of the shirt shows a circle made from "Tiberias" written in Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, and Greek.
In back of those trees is the shore of the Sea of Galilee, also known as Lake Tiberias.

That's My World for now, a world rich in antiquities and religious heritage. Until next Friday.Would you like to sign up for the next season of the dig, in spring?

Washing the floor

Shalom dear friends. I have been away (far away) on a dig for six days, without my laptop. And now, coming home for the weekend, I find my modem is not working. So, a few minutes on the neighbors' wireless now is all that is possible.
Hopefully, after another week of archaeology in Tiberias, I'll come home next Friday and the telephone company will have fixed the ADSL connection. Missing you!
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Digging is not all pickaxe, turia, trowel, and brush. Sometimes, if you are lucky, it is also washing a mosaic floor with wet rags!
This one is probably 6th or 7th century.
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The dig is fun. Nice group of young staff and many volunteers from abroad. Tiberias is very hot, in the 90s F.
Lots more pics next week. Thanks for waiting. Shalom to you all!
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