Typical day at
Har Megiddon:
wake up at 4am.
My
roomates alarm is
Coldplay's "Clocks" - love the song but will never hear it the same way
We are bussed to the Tel 15 minutes away and begin our hike up the ancient hill in the morning darkness. Daylight just starts to break at the top as we begin our day.
Tools - Picks, trowels, buckets surveying equipment etc are all unloaded and teams break up to their various dig sites for the day. Water jugs are filled - we drink 3 to 4 liters and probably sweat that much
At our site we are trying to get to the floor level of an ancient temple. To do that we have to uncover layer by layer and record top levels of walls and bottom levels of the foundations as well as mud brick that was stacked on top of the stone foundation walls. Sections are cut and later this helps in the reconstruction. Plaster walls are also found coating the surface of
mudbrick. It is a strange feeling deconstructing walls of buildings that were laid carefully thousands of years ago stone by stone as we go down - but this is the process that must take place. All data is recorded and will later be published as well as top plans, section drawings, and information about bones, flint, and pottery we find. It is back breaking work. Sometimes we use sledgehammers to smash stones into smaller pieces for removal. In our 2 squares in upper J we are going down about 6 feet and within these 5 meter by 5 meter squares there are over 18 walls from various periods from Early to Late bronze age.
To pass the time practical jokes are played on other areas as well as the tourists. They come in hoards to peer down and take photos. This particular group was from China and the tour guide was trying to tell them some misguided information about how we were digging out layers from the cities covered by Noah's flood.
Other fun activities: collecting scorpions, centipedes, and spiders and having them fight in buckets.
Everything is dusty by the end of the day- boots, clothes etc. The temperature is 85 - to 95 degrees - but the humidity can be high. Sometimes a strong welcome breeze blows across the top of the tel and sand gets everywhere. - showers feel awesome - like a new person after a hot day sweating in the dust of Israel's history.
Lunch is at 8:30am - which makes some sense if your day starts at 4am. It is always the same - Loved it at first but this Kosher diet is taking a toll. I never realized how good meat and cheese are together - you start craving cheeseburgers after the first week.
The only meal with meat is lunch time - for dinner some of us have revolted and taken to getting food at the Kibbutz store and having a
BBQ at night after foraging for wood nearby and creating a makeshift grill. there are 3 yellow labs that circle like sharks when the food comes out.
The dig has an armed guard and medic
on site. It is a requirement at Israeli National parks.
The park has Arab workers there is one particular old man who wears his bright checkered
kaffiyeh and clean long
sleeve shirt and pants every day. It is amazing how he does this in the hot sun moving rocks and dirt without looking like the slobs we do after a hard day of work.
This is the dig director Israel Finkelstein Professor at University of Tel Aviv
Excerpts from an article he co-authored about Megiddo:
"The death of Josiah at Megiddo had enormous implications. With the political hopes of the Kingdom of Judah dashed, expectations for the future of the Davidic dynasty shifted from military to metaphysical-to a messiah or savior who would return to earth to restore the House of Israel. This vision has been preserved in the vivid prophecies of the New Testament's Book of Revelation, themselves perhaps based on distant memories of invading Egyptian armies, Canaanite coalitions, and Israelite ambitions to control this important nexus of agricultural richness and vital overland trade routes. At Megiddo, the current excavations-scheduled to resume next summer-continue to unravel the complex interconnections between apocalyptic myth, biblical legend, and the archaeological evidence of city's long history.
No archaeological site in the world is so completely associated with cosmic disaster as Megiddo-a prominent ancient site in northern Israel identified by many historians and theologians as the earthly location of Armageddon, the scene of the final, apocalyptic battle between the cosmic forces of Good and Evil at the End of Days in the book of Revelation. Prophecies of judgment and destruction aside, archaeologists have been drawn to Megiddo for more than a century by the possibility of uncovering the streets, fortifications, palaces and storehouses of a royal city that is mentioned eight times in the Bible. The evidence they have uncovered attests its status as one of the most important and strategically sensitive cities in the Ancient Near East. In 1992, an expedition from Tel Aviv University in partnership with Pennsylvania State University and other institutions resumed large-scale excavations there to explore more of Megiddo's ancient urban plan, refine the chronology of its rise and fall, and clarify its role in biblical history. "
Methods and Techniques of Archeology:
Surveying equipment. First we level the transit against the benchmark we are about 160 meters above sea level at our site. Then we measure in meters the top and bottom layer of walls and strata we excavate within 5x5 meter squares called loci.
The information is recorded on daily top plans. sections are generated based on elevation heights. Reconstruction of the temples are based on this information. The foundation walls are stone typically with mud brick stacked on top. In the center of the temple we find column bases which were pedestals for wood columns supporting wood beams on the roof above. The roof collapse is examined as the
phytoliths or minerals replace the organic material that once made up the roof: wood beams, rafters covered with mud plaster (see model below). In the squares below you can see a wall with a round shaft that looks like a well - it is actually grain storage pit. This is removed stone by stone as we go down to floor of the early bronze age temple. All this is recorded and then dumped into a tractor trailer for removal. Archeology is destructive - so it must be done right to preserve information of what once existed and the lives of people living in the bronze age 5,000 years ago.
After our last class is out at 9m I am usually too exhausted to go and try to see if there is internet access - If I do manage to get out my laptop my screensaver is always a welcome sight!
