In an attempt to catch up, crazy, crazy.

Some time ago I wrote concerning the daily life of the archaeologist on Hippos. Midway through explanation my brain shut down and I was forced to end with an explanation of our water breaks. Though my blogs are out of order--and so are the pictures (refer to picture of me standing near The Dome of The Rock, and notice that my blog really doesn't mention my trip to Jerusalem at all); I apologize. So I'm backing up, and here we are again at daily life following water breaks. Well, at the risk of sounding facetious: we dig. That's how to describe it the short way, here's the long way.
To begin excavating a square an archaeologist with big muscles, unresolved anger or stress, or a Stallion like Stephanie, seizes the pick-axe and lets it fly. The top-soil, or dirt (cause it's not worth anything) is the hardest to remove after years of archaeologists, energetic non-aliens, and bulldozers have packed it, and rocks and boulders, into a cement-like consistency. After a fair amount of this garbage dust has been loosened the square's team has what we fondly refer to as a "turreah party." One bucket of dirt at a time is removed from the square and hauled by hand or wheel barrow to a dirt pile. Any pottery, bone, or other interesting small finds are not kept when found in the top layer of soil because their original location is non-determinable; meaning that they are of no use in analyzation. I do wonder though, what would Doctor Schuler say if somebody found some gold just under the surface? half a pot? an inscription reading: Hippos public library, founded by.........453 AD. Yes, highly unlikely, but a question to ask nonetheless. Wow, I really wandered there for a minute. But as some say: "not all who wander are lost."
When the color of the soil changes, that signifies a change in loci, meaning that we now collect all finds in buckets and paper sacks. Stephanie the pottery empress, also referred to with much affection as SFR: small finds rudolph, carefully labels each bucket and paper sack in order to collect pottery sherds, roof tiles, bones, tesserae, and roman glass. Occasionally metal is found, usually in the form of a nail; this is especially exciting because along a structure it could mean a door nearby and in a tomb it could mean the remains of a wooden coffin. All these are then brought to the lab where Empress SFR and I (as assistant to her highness) then process each piece. I fill out field cards and count and weigh the finds and then Stephanie analyzes each piece to determine it's size, what it was used for, and any other interesting details. In the spirit of my digression I would like to mention a time before I realized that the Empress' "small finds" title referred to the size of pottery, glass, and bone sherds. There was a time in my great ignorance that I was highly amused to discover what I thought was achaelogical trash talk; after all, the rudolph reference referred to her bright red sunburn (which she has now remedied with a hat). Alas, "small finds" is not a derogatory archaeology term, for as Dr. Schuler says, "there are no small finds in archaeology, only small archaeologists............." I'm 5'3" hmmm.
And now to continue. Picking and turreahing follow and fall into some semblance of a rythym, the only interruptions thereby being the removal of particularly large boulders, and the finding of structural walls or other large and significant buried finds. When this happens work slows somewhat as we carefully dig around the area hoping not to collapse or crush anything. Nothing else to report here until breakfast is called, always an exciting time, but never anything new. As we head to our abandoned military building we are sure to expect much of exactly the same thing: bread, cucumber and tomato salad, boiled eggs, turkish coffee, and various spreads including some nutella (ok so that stuff is fun). After 3 hours of digging anything tastes good and we all eat ravenously.....or at least we all eat, even though inevitably we create dirt smears on the outside of our boiled eggs (we eat them anyway).
Moving on to an NEC (northeast church project, that's us) favorite. Between ten and eleven (that's about 2 to 3 your time) the Kibbutz gives us a fruit break. Typically nectarines, plums, or pears, and very delicious, even with dirt on our hands (hey we're building our immune systems up). So we sit for a few minutes and eat fruit, drink water, and become energized (hopefully) for the next hour or two before we head back down the hill at the end of the day for lunch at the kibbutz. All you 9 to 5ers, how does 4-12 sound to ya? It's interesting but a person can get used to it.
Following the actual excavation the team also scrubs pottery, attends lectures and logistical meetings. In the afternoons there are naps to take and swims in the sea of galilee, blogs to write (cough, cough), books to read for the archaeology courses, and pictures to send home to family members. In the evenings, in addition to lectures and meetings we also have devotions led by team members on the shores of galilee; it's a great experience and the sunsets are glorious as my picture proves.
Well, that seems to be it; kudos to anyone who actually read through all of that, and maybe were even interested. If you have any questions I'd love to answer them, and yes, I do plan on taking some pictures of the site soon and posting them also on the blog. If not today, then tomorrow will follow an account of our adventures in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. As soon as something happens there will be an update on the evil pigeons and the pigeon whisperer as well. Todah!!!