Brian's Blog

There we were, happily enjoying our last day on the site with the hot sun, dry dirt, ancient ruins, and sweaty volunteers.  Suddenly, Ben rushes up to me and says in an urgent, almost anxious voice, "There's something that you need to come and look at."  I would have asked him what it was or why, but I knew by the look on his face that whatever it was was worth coming to look at. 

As I approached what looked like a normal, average pile of dirt, sand, and pottery, I saw a small object in the earth that Ben had been digging.  Then I saw something that offered further confirmation to what had already seemed so certain.  There in the sand laid that which is pictured below. 

I am nearly reluctant to comment any further, since the sight speaks for itself.  Here we find one final message from Hippos-raiders of old: the Space Chickens.  The only question is this: shall we understand this as a warning to leave the conquered territory of the Space Chickens alone or as a small gesture of confirmation that we have begun to uncover the truth--with the implication to continue to discover more? 

Whatever the answer, this last-minute find serves as what I might call irrefutable proof of the Space Chicken theory (or shall I say "fact"?).  We do not yet fully know the purpose of the Space Chickens, but I recommend that we speak of them respectfully, for their wrath is surely a formidable foe.

We now near the end of our excavation, and I think that there’s some mixed feelings about being excited to be done and sad to leave.  I think that most people are primarily excited, though. 

We’ve finished all of our digging now, and we’re just covering stuff up on the site to preserve it for next season’s excavation.  It’s kindof weird to be in this phase, because it seems to be very backwards from what we’ve been doing so far.  We’ve been excavating for 18 dig-days now, but now we are doing what Ben so punctiliously called “recavating.”  It’s like excavating, but reversed: we are covering the church floor with a thin layer of fill dirt to protect it, so we’re bringing dirt back into the site bucket by bucket.  It feels weird, but it has to be done. 

We’ve uncovered mystery after mystery in our little church, and now I guess we’re putting them back to rest for another year.  I reckon that the discovery of the definitive proof to the leading theory on Space Chickens will have to wait until a later season. 

Until then, remember to brush your teeth and say your prayers.

Perhaps just reading the title of this entry will help start to pull things together for you as well as they did for me.  For I and my illustrious colleague Benjamin (with the help of Marc) have formed a solid theory regarding a mysterious room in the church up on the hill.  We have a section that we call C Zero, and the contents of this square helped us to formulate a hypothesis that may be the key to understanding the “abandonment” of the entire city of Hippos.  Allow me to explain. 

There we were in C Zero: a meter deep in the dirt with a bag full of bones sitting next to us.  The bag was full of chicken-sized bones.  At first we thought that section C Zero was simply a domestic area that either housed animals such as chicken or was a cooking area.  Then Ben found something that changed everything: a dog-sized jawbone. 

Perhaps the missing parts of the picture are beginning to fill in for you now as well.  It was clear to Ben, Marc, and me at that point that we were dealing with no ordinary church-abandoned-after-a-huge-earthquake-in-the-8th-century situation here.  Rather, we had on our hands a bona fide case of Space Chicken foul play. 

No ordinary chicken has this kind of fearsome bone structure in its jaw, but this beast had powerful build and an truly intimidating appearance.  The evidence for giant Space Chickens from an unknown solar system is nearly irrefutable. 

Our current hypothesis is that the Space Chickens decided to pay Hippos a little visit in the 8th century.  In addition to whatever other destructive activities the chickens effected in the city, we believe that they took the members of our northeast church hostage and perhaps used them for slave labor for a short time.  They soon thereafter slew them and used flying chicken coops to transport them to the Sea of Galilee where they were buried. 

There are those, however, who doubt.  I am ashamed to say that our fearless leader Dr. Schuler is one of them.  I and most of the rest of the team are fairly convinced that this phase of denial is natural and will pass with time. 

We are now starting our fourth week here in Ein Gev and Hippos.  We had a nice weekend with no scheduled activities.  It's nice just to get to relax once in a while. 

 At the site, we're making quite a bit of progress.  Evidently, we've already exceeded what Dr. Schuler had planned for the whole five weeks.  That might partly be because we have had some unexpected help from others--newcomers, that is.  It's been moving pretty fast up there. 

 I had to do a bunch of survey work today in particular.  I have to look through a scope, read a meter stick, and write down the reading.  Then I have to bring the numbers back and punch them into a magical spreadsheet that tells me the elevations of everything that I shoot. 

 I'm anxious to get done with the dig season, but I also want to stay in Israel, in many ways.  It's quite heavenly here.  No text could really do it justice, so I won't try to describe it here (or maybe it's just late and I kindof want to go to bed). 

We're just about to the end of the third week, and time is really starting to fly at this point.  I remember thinking on the first day of the dig, "I can't believe that we'll be working this hard for the next five weeks," but now three weeks has almost passed, and,  in some ways, I feel like I just got here. 

I think that we've pretty consistently uncovered something intriguing or thought-provocative each day.  This week we've found some interesting rooms outside of the church, what we think might be an entryway to the church (which might help answer the problem of all of the blocked-up doors we've found), and a street that we may find extends all the way across the town. 

I wish very much that all of my friends and family could be here to experience both the archaeology and the culture of this place.  I think that living on a kibbutz is kindof cool, and unlike anything I know of in the United States.  The archaeological puzzles are fascinating, and the language (Hebrew) is really cool-sounding. 

We have just arrived back at the kibbutz from Jordan, and it was quite an exciting trip, though not without some…bloopers.  We saw a ton of things over the course of our three days that section of the Holy Land: Jerash (Jerassa), Amman, Madaba, Petra, Pella, Mt. Nebo, and others.  The country is very poor, and we could see that by both simply looking out our windows as we'd drive by and by the fact that even their 4-star hotels left much to be desired (in terms of plumbing, bed quality, and overall facilities).  In this way, it reminded me a little of Kingston, Jamaica.  However, our tour guide, Sami, had a really quality personality, and people were very hospitable. 

 

I enjoyed the trip, but I'm also very glad that we're now back at the kibbutz--I've never felt so much like the kibbutz was "home" as I do now.  It’s really nice to be back, and I feel like I can finally relax a little more. 

Today was another fairly hot and exhausting day.  It was a decent finds day at the site, though, since we found a number of things (some unexpected mosaic, a mysteriously blocked door, and a scorpion).  I've been sifting dirt for the past couple of days in order to find some kind of treasure (probably a coin or something significant like that).  I think that I got kindof burnt today doing that, but it's all in a days work, I guess.  I'll wear ore sunscreen tomorrow.  

The group as a whole continues to bond, so it’s a good experience.  I’m getting closer to some of the Israeli and Polish team members, also.  I think that that is really important.  I hope that God uses me to demonstrate His love to them--even through the linguistic barrier. 

I hope to learn some Hebrew here still, somehow.  The only binding factor is time; I may not have enough of it. 

We leave for Jordan on Wednesday for a little mini-tour of a couple places.  I can't remember the names of the specific towns right now, but I'm sure that it will be a fun learning experience. 

Today was the last day of the first work week. It feels good to be done with a week’s worth of work, and I think that we’ve been very productive so far. We’ve cleared out a lot of the church and finished a much of the preliminary nave cleaning. We’ve found a lot of pottery so far and a lot of architectural items.
It’s a fun time at the kibbutz (Israeli commune), too. Over the past week, we have routinely gon to the Sea of Galilee, washed off, and washed our clothes. This weekend we will be doing some educational things and relaxing/recuperating for the next week of hard work.

Today was the second day of digging and it’s exciting and tiring at the same time. So far, we’ve pulled some weeds, dug down to a tomb, uncovered some new architecture (that we didn’t necessarily expect to find), and exposed a skeleton that was in a sarcophagus. Part of my job on the site has to do with surveying with a level and a measuring stick. I measure and record all of the heights for things that we find in the church. My back hurts a little, but the excitement of uncovering a church and of simply being in the Holy Land itself is quite a rush; it exceeds the fatigue.
A lot of the Israelis are really friendly. I’ve met several of them already—the closest one of whom is probably Amittai, a student archaeologist from one of the other teams. I know just enough Hebrew to fool Israelis for just a minute that I might be fluent, and when they find out that I’m not, we’ve already started a conversation! It’s a great time.

Well, it's down to "crunch time" now. I'm just getting all of the last pieces in place. I've got all of my classes lined up for this school year, and I've got almost all of my gear ready to go in the suitcase. It's a lot of work to get ready for it, but I'm sure that it will be really cool. This will be my first time visiting a country off of this continent, and I'm sure that it will be an awesome experience. I'm confident that I'll learn a lot about the area, history, archaeology, the others on the trip, and God. Bring on the ridiculously long plane ride!