Digging Down Deeper

Last Wednesday was my third day on the archaeological dig in Ein Gedi.  It went much the same as the first two days--lots of pottery, bone and some glass.  Esther, who was digging near me, found a really cool piece of a mosaic and some tiles.  It’s not clear yet whether they’re Byzantine or from some other era.  Unfortunately, for much of the day we had to deal with a wind storm that was blowing through the area and getting dust in our eyes. ears, noses and mouths (basically every exposed crevice on our bodies.)  It had been windy on Monday as well, but this was much, much worse.  The following day, which was supposed to be my last one on the dig, was much more eventful artifact-wise.  I found two bronze coins, some pottery handles and a bit of glass.  It was a good day for the “treasury” because Michelle, who was herself digging for the last day, found three coins!  By midday, I had decided that I wasn’t ready to leave yet and so I made arrangements with Gideon to stay on for an extra half a week.

That Thursday night after dinner Michelle and I walked about three kilometers down to the hot springs because we wanted to float in the Dead Sea under the stars.  The moon hadn’t come up yet so it was rather dark and hard to see the way.  When we had almost made it to the pools, Michelle accidentally stepped in some water and immediately called out, “Don’t follow me!”  It turns out she had basically walked into a sinkhole and since she was wearing heavy hiking boots she couldn’t get her left foot out.  She handed me her phone and bag and I offered to help pull her up, but we both decided that wasn’t the best idea since she would most likely pull me in instead.  By this point, I was practically hysterically laughing as I watched her struggling to free herself.  Eventually she was able to pull her foot out, but her boot remained buried deep in the mud.  She stuck her arm all the way in and was finally able to free it.  She put the boots back on, but had to squish in her shoes all the way over to the springs.

Once we got there, my hands and arms were so chapped and dry that it was absolutely excruciating to put them under the hot sulphur water.  We made our way down to the sea and I slowly made my way into the much colder water, trying to find the hot spots where the spring water mixed with the sea water.  Michelle got in much quicker than I did and watching her resting on a mud pile, I told her she looked like a mermaid.  This led us to start belting out songs from The Little Mermaid as we floated under the starry sky.  Of course I had forgotten most of the lyrics so at one point I literally sang out, “Up on the sand, they ride their bikes...”  Michelle didn’t let me live that one down because not only were those clearly the wrong words, but as anyone who has ever ridden a bike knows, it’s impossible to ride a bike on sand.  After about 15 minutes it was too cold for me to bear any more so we got out into the chilly air, dowsed ourselves with bottles of water we’d warmed in the spring and quickly put on our clothes.  Fortunately Michelle had brought an extra pair of shoes so she decided to just leave her mud-clogged boots behind.  On the way back we got a bit lost when we took the wrong fork in the road, but we quickly realized our mistake and got back to the hostel without too many more problems.

After breakfast on Friday morning, I had to check out of the hostel and bring my stuff to the dig site where I was going to spend the next few nights sleeping in the tent that Michelle was leaving behind.  I had planned to go down to Masada to hike the Snake Trail, but when I got to the site the weather looked rather threatening.  I ended up just hanging out with Nathaniel and Michelle until she left to go diving in Eilat.  Midway through the afternoon, it began to pour down rain so I hid out in the dig container working on the Korean music video until it finally let up.  Then Nathaniel came over and said we were going with the park rangers from the Wadi David field school to some of the areas up north to check out reports of possible flooding. On the way to the field school to pick up more of the rangers, we saw a beautiful rainbow arcing into the sky from the surface of the sea.  We drove about 20 minutes without seeing any problems until we got to a checkpoint that the field school Jeep wasn’t allowed to pass since it was out of its jurisdiction.  Instead of going further, we drove up to a lookout point that is apparently exactly at sea level.  It was still really windy and overcast so we didn’t last long up there before we got back into the cars, but it was definitely a pretty spot to watch the sunset.

That night Gideon had invited Nathaniel and I to join him for Shabbat dinner in the kibbutz dining room.  It was the 56th anniversary of the kibbutz so the dining hall was all decorated and there were a lot more people than usual there for dinner.  There was also a stage set up for some sort of presentation or show, but we didn’t stick around for long enough to see any of the ceremony.  Instead we went over to Gideon’s house with his wife, son and daughter and had coffee, tea, wine and cookies.  One of the other dig volunteers then drove us up the field school where we had arranged to spend the night with one of Nathaniel’s friends since it was too stormy to sleep out in the tents.  On the way up, we saw that one of the passes had flooded and there was water running over the road.  Luckily we were able to drive through it and get up to the friend’s apartment.  Right after we arrived, Nathaniel left to go check out the flooding with some of the rangers, but I was cold, wet and tired so I stayed in the apartment where I read an English translation of The Little Prince until I fell asleep.

The weather still hadn’t really cleared much by Saturday morning so Nathaniel and I spent most of the afternoon and evening up at the kibbutz hotel where I worked on the video and Nathaniel wrote post cards.  We had talked about having a campfire that night with one of his ranger friends, but by the time we got back to the site it was too late to go all the way up the field school to pick him up.  On Sunday, I had fully intended to go to Masada, but I also really had to do a bunch of laundry.  We went up to the kibbutz to get the laundry done and by the time it was finished it was too late to set off on a hike.  It ended up being another quiet day of relaxing and hanging out at the kibbutz.  That night we had the regular Sunday orientation meeting where we met all the newcomers arriving for the week.  Most of the “newcomers” were actually veterans who had been coming to dig for many years.  The average age of these volunteers was about 70 years old with the oldest two clocking in at 82.  It's amazing that veterans are in such great shape that they can still get down and work in the dirt.  After the meeting, Nathaniel and I decided to build a campfire and Suleman joined us at the campsite where he made some delicious Bedouin tea.

On Monday morning, it was back to work at the excavation site.  I had a fruitful two days working in a large room that is most likely a courtyard.  Yesterday, I found a coin that was attached to a piece of bronze, several large pieces of pottery rims and handles, the spout of a ceramic oil lamp and the rim and neck of a glass oil lamp.  In the afternoon, I went with Esther for a final dip in the hot springs and Dead Sea before the sun went down for the day.  I had a bit of a rough night’s sleep because my legs were all cramped up in the tiny tent where I was sleeping and for the third straight night I was convinced that a small animal was trying to break into my tent (it was more likely the wind brushing the rain cover against the side.)  Though I was a bit sluggish as a result today, I still had some pretty good luck digging.  I found another piece of bronze that may be a coin (though it appears to be concave so it could be something else), the top of a ceramic jug and several more large pieces of the glass oil lamp.  Some of the shards were pretty small, but we’re hoping that once all the pieces get put together we’ll have nearly a complete vessel.  By the end of the day, it also looked like we might have hit a wall in the room, which is an important component of figuring out the layout of the whole structure.  During the breakfast break, I officially “graduated” and received my highly-coveted certificate of participation.

All in all, this excavation has been a great experience.  I met some really cool people, was able to work seven hours a day next to an ancient synagogue with amazing views of the sea on one side and the mountains on the other and got up close and personal with the local desert wildlife.  At times it was hard work, but it was all worth it for the sense of accomplishment we all felt at the end of each day.  Tomorrow I hope to finally make it to Masada.