Archaeology

19 June 2007

I am staying at the Kenyon Institute, the British Institute of Archaeology. Therefore, I am hanging out with a bunch of scholarly archaeologist. Last week I visited an archaeological site in Shofat, a town in between Jerusalem and Ramallah. They are digging in the middle of a major road in the media therefore it is a long strip of a dig. This is the route for the new transit system between Jerusalem and the Settlements in the West Bank. Shofat is considered Jerusalem, and I think now so are the settlements.

It will be a nice and quick railway and a modern mode of transportation. They found a small village of habitation however, I cannot tell anyone more details, until they research and qualify the results! This is how it is. It seems that everything becomes political. Archaeology has become political, both sides wanting to find something to prove that they were there, or King David was here, or this spot is important. Which in reality it is important. Archaeology tells us about our history, who was where and when. It can reveal how people lived, what diet they were on, how long they were there and if there were any battles. Israel is a great place for historical scholars, transcribers, and archaeologist like I was in my recent past. How I miss it so.

The Rishut offered me a job, if I wanted to stay and work for them. It can be tempting. But the lifestyle can be horrid! Waking up at 4:30 every morning day in and day out seemingly forever. Working in the cold, in the heat analyzing every material remains (which is the fun part). Then, never having time to catch up on the lack of sleep, because one stays up to write reports, draw drawings etc…and most of the time the archaeologist doesn’t have the time to write up a final report and publish it for the other archaeologist to gain knowledge from. Thus, funding from the National Humanities of the Arts.

I am at a research institute, where scholars research, look at old books in the attempt to put together tiny pieces of a puzzle to create the big picture.