shabbat shalom wa mozel tov

This is my very last post from Israel, I leave tonight for the airport and will soon be on my way home. This last week has been a lot of cleaning up an and packing, wednesday Michelle nd I spent all day in the office doing registration and boxing and cataloguing everything and going crazy, but it was fun working with Silvie the one in charge of all that. The rest of the time we just hung out and finished some paperwork then had a pizza party (pizza, an amazing invention, i haven't had it in 6 weeks, it was wonderful, even if it was kosher). And i did actually go in the pool for about 5 minutes, the first time this whole month, ehh, it happens. We came into Jersualem this morning, and were able to spend some time in the Israel museum, that was cool, especially since it's been closed for about five years for renovationa dn just opened monday, so we were just able. As far as pottery goes, it didn't have too good of a collection, but it did have a a general sweep of lots of diffrernt things, and it was pretty cool seeing things in person that i've read and heard about like the aleppo codex and sennacherib prism an stele from ekron. I had my last 6 shekel falafel, it was as always delicious, i added some more spicy stuff and was even better even if my mought was burning like crazy.
It is definitely a hard day today, i am ready to come home and see everyone and have a small break, but it is so hard to leave, i could stay here forever and never be bored. This land is absoplutely incredible, it has captured me. The sounds and smells, the history, even the crazy storekeepers trying to marry you, it's great. There are so many ties that pull me, It may not be the same place it was when Christ walked the streets, but you definitely feel a type of sacredness to this land and a connection that doesn't come in many other places. Eric and I were walking around the old city and he remarked how great it is when you realize that transition you've had going from tourist walking around and not knowing what's going on around you, to totally feeling at home and knowing where you're going and how to get there and the way to fit in (as much as you can when you're a blonde haired, tall american young girl). Shalom from Jerusalem, I will see you soon.

cool things

Some of the exciting finds and understanding that came out of this season-

http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=182962

http://gath.wordpress.com/

breakfast with the exorcist

so i think it's pretty funny that this page is titled christina in egypt, because basically i was in Egypt for barely four days, and the rest of the 5 or so weeks have been in Israel. but anyways, had another great weekend, last full one in Jerusalem :( i'll at least get one more day, finally getting to go to the israel musuem and the shrine of the book, it's been closed for renovation and just opened yesterday. It was mostly a relaxing one, went to church for the last time, i will definitely miss the spectacular view during sacrament meetings, and then to the Rockafeller museum with Eric, stacey, and michelle. Eric is working on making me a master pottery reader and so we went through and he tried teaching me all he knew and keeps trying to test me, once in a while i get it right :) so i'm learning and slowly becoming a pottery geek, which is a bad tihng according to jeff (he is) but it's fun:) The rest of the time we hung out and did some walking through the old city and ate some more amazing food :) Oh and one morning we were seated at a breakfast table with what turned out to be one of 5 exorcists from argentina who just got done with a congress in Rome and was making his annually visit to Jerusalem, it was pretty interesting, he was a nice guy, you meet some pretty cool people here. We also managed to find marshmallows (it is incredibly hard to do so) and made tropical marshmallow, exploding cow, tea biscuit s'mores (in a fire i made) sunday night. It was pretty great, talk about working with what you have, but they were delicious, and if you have never had exploding cow before, you are definitely missing out.

Everyone lately has just been finishing up and cleaning as we get ready to close up the season. Last week was one of the most exciting with the juglet and cooking vessel and some things in the other areas like a brick destruction level, though yesterday as we were doing our last digging and starting to clean, we had some more excitement. i, and eric, was starting to take out the vessel, when we got another pottery piece sticking out of a different material. We decided to follow it down and dig it out, mostly because we didn't want to leave it exposed for a whole year until next season. I started digging down and it just keeps going, I got down probably close to 15 cm when Jeff and Aren came over and told me to stop. So far we had the side with intact handle of a large cookingpot/storage jar with the rim seemingly intentionally broken off. We had to stop because it was getting to deep and we don't have the time to excavate around it. So we have to leave it and rebury it, hoping nothing will happen to it for the next year, it was a sad blow to the excitement. You always find the best stuff at the end, like in the square over i was helping with as well, there is a huge plaster installment that dives as well and we still don't have the bottom, but it looks like it abutts the EB/MB (depends on who you talk to) wall and we have to bury that as well :( there are two going theories for the cooking pot/jar i have though, either it's just a storage jar dug into the ground, or it is a baby burial ( as has been found in the iron age/LB surface types we're on), I'm hoping for the latter, it would be much more interesting.

yesterday was jeff's birthday, we had a great party, first of all a couple of us ran to the top of the tell before he got there and made a coca cola tree witht the bottles hanging from all the branches, he was pretty ecstatic, and then one guy's wife made a cake and brought popsicles, it was fun. Last night we also got to go to a concert in the Bell caves,it was really fun, this small natural theater with bats flying around and great acoustics, it was vivaldi, loved it.

Today was the last day for us all on the tell sadly, only a few get to go tomorrow to finish getting ready for the photographs and aerials, but there's a chance I can go and help, so we'll see.It was all sweeping and dusting, yesterday we had taken down the shades so it was a very hot, draining day, but already the area is looking good and you can start to see the big picture and connect all the different squares, it's cool to see the line of stratigraphy our area is especially important for, that we can look on surfaces from the crusader period all the way down to early bronze on this side of the tell. we came back to the kibbutz and did some pottery writing and i also help load tools and equipment and take them to the storage unit which felt like a sauna inside. Tonight is a lecture by Arim Mazar, an important guy from the Hebrew university and is supposed to be really good, I'm excited.

the miracle of Tisha b'av

It's so crazy, i only have a week and a half left i can't believe it! i don't want it to end, especially just as i'm getting to the good layers ( i hate how that happens). I am learning so much and i'm even starting to learn to classify some of the pottery though not near as much as there is. but yep, I'm hooked, this is even more fun than US digging, pretty much i just get to blast big holes in the ground with a pick axe, who has time for measely troweling? Except of course when i almost kill a tiny vessel with it (which i didn't, just knocked off part of the rim, so sad, I don't know if I'll ever get over that)

We definitely experienced a Tish b'av miracle, it was pretty much one of the most amazing days, this whole summer i've been telling everyone i was going to find a whole vessel, that was my goal, and they didn't believe me. We got to a surface at the end of last week and Jeff asked me what i was going to find when we took it down, he laughed when i told him a complete vessel just like area D. three days later i did! and in an area where no one had found a whole one yet :) it was a very cute baby one and next to a huge (we think) base of a cooking/storage jar :) this happened towards the end of they day, so we won't know too much more about it until tomorrow, it actually was not supposed to be in that spot at all ( i told you, a miracle), so we'll see what it turns into. I got to take it out and carry it back to the kibbutz, and got to ride in the car too :) I was pretty darn excited, even the four hour pottery reading didn't phase me too much. Yep, that's why i dig :)

This week has gone by way, way too fast! I'm back in jerusalem already, it's so crazy. we did get a lot of work done, and I better have some good muscles once this is over, besides the hiking part, i have dug with the pick axe for 3 out of the 4 days about. In the group Eric is over there are four working squares, I've kinda been jumping back and forth between, but the main one, and the one i'll be staying on (hopefully, unless he makes me work on another project) is finally starting to produce results, we settled on a surface at the beginning of the week, and then today we think we found the mycaenean floor that had been found in the neighboring square and hopefully right under the surface are some good things, like a whole vessel (cross my fingers). the other day i did find a bronze age accessorie pin, that was cool, it was an aquamarine colored metal. in our area we have also found an egyptian faience scarab (absolutely amazing), a loom weight, some large vessel sherds, and part of a MB, possibly EB fortification wall, and where i am there might even be evidence of a room system with a mud brock wall form early iron age. we try not to be jealous of area D who got ot the destruction layer, and last night pulled out 32 complete vessels (though amit promises that if they have to pull out any more i can come help, i was supposed to last night, but it didn't work out). I unofficially have the position of assistant everything to eric, pretty sure its more a serf-master relationship, but i have been learning so much and he takes time to explain and teach me everything he can. next year he's going to make me official assistant ,though I'm pretty sure it's only because he wants to pass off all his paperwork to someone else :)

On Monday we visited Tel Burna, a new site that is hoped to be the ancient lebnah, it was quite exciting, eric calls it the Lachish of our generation, we'll see, it would be very fun to dig there, though, to be able to be in the opening stages of a dig. And they have it worked out that their dig is the three weeks right before zafit's, maybe they'll make it a discount if we do both. Hopefully tomorrow I'll go to the rockfeller, Eric's going to show me all the vessel and teach me more about identifying them, at the moment I can only identify about 3, maybe 4 types of the pottery when i find it. Last week I was able to go back to the temple mount and holy sepulchre, i was pretty excited when I could find both places and lead my friends to both places on my own :) Jeff also took me and eric around a little tour type adventure over to Mt. Zion and through the old city. We also went to an archaeologist meeting/party thing for israeli archaeology where pretty much all the big wigs go, there were three of us with Jeff, I mostly stuck with Eli who made it a point to point out every important face and position to me, i think managed get 5 memorized, but i am definitely learning the important people and politics or the archaeology game here. The hostel i'm in this weekend, is right inside damascus gate and has a rooftop garden to look out over the city, i love looking out over everything. And it's right by some great food places, i had amazing kabob tonight, there's a reason why Jeff says the only reason he comes is for the food :)

if your interested, there's an actual site blog- gath.wordpress.org

Digging!!!

So i've been here for 4 days, I've been reminded of how much i love doing this! It's super hot and sunny, you start sweating by 6:30am and feel like you're going to lunch when it's actually breakfast. There tons of prickly weeds and rocks and dirt flying everywhere, you come home caked with a layer of sand you hope is a tan, but quickly find out it's not. By the second day you are sore and bruised and absolutely sick of walking up the stupid tel to the main site and then to your own across to the other side. And then spend hours putting up stupid canopies without the right amount of rope or poles with wind to finally be able to start shooting levels and pick axe the top portion of the unit before it's time to start cleaning up.

It is absolutely wonderful!!!! I love it.

These first couple of days we've been clearing out the weeds and winter fill from the site an setting up the shade canopies , huge tent like things that are beasts which we try to hold up with these plastic poles that threaten to fall on top of us when the wind picks up. We had to make one putting two sheets together, it was crazy , took us about 6 hours in all, but we finally got it up and got to start digging. It was a very exciting day :) The area I'm in is on the west side of the Tel right below the peak and the ruins of the crusader fortress. We're working on the slope and attemptiong to connect the stratigraphic layers, at the moment there are 13, going way back to Early Bronze age period. Our team is divided into groups working in different sectins within that area. In the group I'm in, we get to start two new units to north of the other open pits and try to see how the middle bronze fortification wall extends and if there are any other dwellings around it. there are three of us for that, and we managed to get the section stringed and the points plotted with the tripod, i kinda missed the total station we used last year though. And we started taking off the top soil level, trying to get to a brick level we see in the connecting unit. So at the moment we're not finding quite as exciting stuff, lots of sherds and some bone fragments, there was a cool bead, and lots of rocks. Tomorrow we'll fet that level through and actually be getting to the rich levels we can actually do things with, we are all very, very excited. Jeff makes sure the guys let me have a turn at that pick axe, so all in all it is going great.

We finish working around 1pm then come back for lunch, followed by pottery cleaning and reading, which will actually pick up more starting tomorrow when we're getting more pottery from all the areas. I am slowly starting to pick up the typology of the pottery, there are so many different kinds and people like Jeff and the other supervisors can look at it and pull up some period for it, from early bronze to iron 2b to philistine..., it's pretty crazy. At the moment I have marmluke pottery down (though tomorrow I'll probably get it wrong) and somewhat early bronze. I just have to keep asking and asking and learning to try to take it all in. But I'll get there and eventually be able to understand everything I'm doing. I am really good at eavesdropping (though i guess it's not real eavesdropping when they know you're there) and listening in on conversations between the supervisors and other wise individuals (the funnest are when there are heated debates over certain issues like the david and goliath story or 3D imaging) it's pretty fun and interesting and I am learning bits here and there. On saturday one guy is going to take us to the museum and an antiques shop (though we're not buying anything there!) so we can look at some whole vessels and learn a little better how to differenciate pottery between the periods. i am so excited to be going back to Jerusalem this weekend. k my computer's dying, that's all i got.

So the first leg of my adventure is over. It was kind of a bittersweet day today, leaving everyone on the tour who i've grown so close to and who all adopted me, but then finally getting here to Safi and starting to dig. I hate having to do things like that. But I am here, my new home for the next for weeks pretty much. The last couple days have been absolutely amazing, as it all has been. We've been staying in jerusalem over on the west side and went into the old city a couple days and every night, absolutely wonderful. Friday night we went down to the western wall to celebrate with everyone ushering the shabbat. We pushed our way through the crowds to touch the wall, and then danced around with all the young jewish girls. I went to the wall twice, it was a marvelous contrast, all the way up to it people are singing and dancing and mingling around, and then you get to the wall where there is a quiet solemnity, both times I went i would take a few minutes and just watch the faces and hear the mutterings of the shabbat prayers, saw people placing their prayers in the cracks. it was a beautiful site, you could see the devotiona and feel a sweet spirit of prayer. And then of course i went out with Christi and Mary and joined the circle of other younger girls and clapped and pretended to sing along with them and danced in the circles, it was great fun, a rejoicing for the shabbat. then last night we went down to ben yehuda street which comes alive at the end of the sabbath and all the shops open and people are out meeting up and watching the world cup on all the cafe screens.

We also went to the old city for a little shopping, we thought we did pretty good,

I am getting the hang of bargaining , though i always had Paul doing most of it, he was pretty great at it. We did go into one shop with the most obnoxious guy. He would talk and talk and talk, half the time we didn't even know what he was syaing, something about Jesus being his neighbor but just a prophet and because we were mormons we would just end up changin our minds and becoming muslims the next day and some other weird stuff. We think it was mostly an attempt to get us side tracked and keep his prices higher, but we made it out of there alive and with what we wanted.

Yesterday we also went to church at the Jerusalem center. it was quite wonderful, the room for sacrament meeting has three glass walls, so when you're sitting there you look out over the city that whole hour, it was fantastic, it was also fun to be there on fast sunday.

Amazing

Life is absolutely amazing, even if it has only gone below 100 degrees about one day this whole trip. Not only have I not had internet service most places I've gone, i 've also been way too tired to do much but fall in bed and sleep as soon as I get back to my room every night. I try to sleep on the bus, but can only manage at the most about 5 minutes, who can sleep when you're passing right along the Nile or the Valley around Gallilee. So once I finish writing everything then I'll send out the whole day by day accounts.

But to summarize, I have seen amazing things, I still can't belive I've gone to everything I have, at times I have to kick myself, realizing that i'm actually here, it's not some dream or my imagination.

In Egypt we went to the pyramids, cairo bazaar, saladin's citadel, cairo museum (though I was sick that day so only got a quick run through tour of the main things like tut's treasures and some animal mummies) , valley of the kings, saw Tut's mummy, Hatshepsut's mortuary temple, sakkara, memphis, Karnak and the temple at Luxor. Touched the Nile, fended off a crazy carriage driver who wouldn't leave us alone, and flew in the business class for about 30min each way.

I climbed Mt. Sinai and watched an amazing sunrise and snorkeled in the Red Sea. I hiked through the slot canyons of Petra and saw the amazing treasury, royal tombs, and necropolis there. I floated in the dead sea and got stinging water in my eyes, nose and mouth, it was nasty and hurt, but other than that it was fun.

We went to Masad and Qumran, amazing places as well, I only wish we didn't have to hurry through them all so fast. they are definitely places that make you think and wonder and dig inside yourselves. saw Jericho and Bet She'an, getting to go into the west bank, which is completely safe, Blar says he feels safer there than downtown SL.

Today we sailed across the sea of Gallilee to Tel Dan to see a part of a gate that Abraham would have walked through, and to capernaum where there is still the synagigue jesus would have gone to and peter's house. as well as the traditional site of the Mt. of Beattitudes and banias at the foot of Mt Hermon where Jesus asked "whom do ye say that i am" to peter and the other apostles and water flows straight from under the rocks. And passed along ther Golan heights where so much modern history has occurred. we went into a druse village for lunch and had Lebunae and saw why certain statements were so poignant that the Saviour made. Like a city set on a hill, if referring to one like tiberias you can not only see it at night with its lights, but during the day the white building (stones, i forgot what kind) sticks out just as bright, it can be seen 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. and to the stream of Mt Hermon where the rock flowed straight out and the apostles would have been surrounded by about 6 different temples of greek and roman gods and idols.

it's asolutely amazing to study the scriptures and read about the stories on the spoats where they occurred. it doesn't really strengthen your testimony or make you believe if you doubted or anything, but i don't think it's supposed to, that's not what it;s meant for. It's just that you can feel a different spirit, a reference and appreciation, it makes you ponder more what these accounts and stories mean to you and how they can really apply in your life. sometimes we have fun and joke a little like instead of "I walked today where jesus walked..." we sing "i swam today where jesus walked..." but it really hits you hard when you go to places like capernaum or ceasaria phillipi that these are real places and this is where it happened, that we were standing in the synagogue only two feet above where jesus told them to go get the coin out of the fish and much more.

It's amazing, this world is amazing, all that the Lord has done for us is amazing. I know that Christ is our Saviour, that if we look to him he is there and is our deliverer. He once lived and talked on this earth just as all of us and will once again do so in the coming day. he is waiting with outstretched arms and an open heart if we will but turn towards him.

So I got there, had to pay 60 LE to get into the complex even though I had already paid in the tour package. I didn’t really know what I was doing at that point, just praying really hard that it would work out. It was an awesome sight, an amazing to think that I was there, right in front of me were these amazing structures thousands of years old, everything I had dreamed of, and yet I couldn’t enjoy them as I wanted, I was too rushed and anxious looking for everybody. And on top of that, me being a blonde haired girl walking alone, it was a beacon for every vender/whatever guy out ooking for money,. One kid especially just wouldn’t leave me alone- ‘come I show you where to touch it, here special spot, let me take your picture, perfect spot for picture…” – so I finally was like ok, I don’t know if I’ll find the group here, who knows if I’ll get the chance again, so I gave him my camera to take my picture and then he kept wanting me to have different poses and junk and I was like no, I’m good that’s all. I got my camera back, though of course after I had to pay him- “that’s all, this is nothing, I want American, Egyptian nothing, this is nothing..” – I finally got him off my back, after telling him for sure I did not want a picture with a donkey, and no I did not want him to take me anywhere, that I just needed to get back to my group (I was hoping that mentioning my big group would deter him a little, it didn’t).

So I got rid of him, had barely made it to the side of the first pyramid when a kid was riding by on the camel, I was definitely tired and not thinking cause when he said, here take my picture, I said ok, and did, and then looked up to see his dad coming and realized how stupid I was, so I had to go through the same sequence, managed to get away, not paying any American money, but still probably giving him more than I should have. I got out behind Cheop’s and saw a parking lot of mostly tour buses near chefron’s so I decided to look over there, praying that I would find them or pick pick out the bus, even though I couldn’t remember at all what the bus looked like.

So I was walking over there and, yay! As I walked into the parking lot there were a few from my group that happened to be standing in front of the bus as they were getting ready to leave and waiting for everybody else to come back. They were excited to see me, everybody was very sorry they had not noticed I was gone and were very impressed with what I had done. And Allan said he was now my buddy (he even had a spot for me right next him on the bus) and he has kept true to that, pretty much every corner we turn or street place we go, Allan is always looking back to find me and make sure I’m there. I’m usually the last one coming up from anything, but I do try to stay fairly close so he doesn’t get a heart attack or something, he is a sweet guy though, and I do know he’s just looking out for me.

It was because of me, though, that every time we got on or off the bus or get somewhere new we have to count off. Now Blair just put us into groups though to make it easier so just one person looks after each group, and off course Allan is the leader of ours, it’s pretty funny. And now I can’t get really anywhere without someone making sure I’m around or on the bus, and if I’m the slightest bit late to breakfast in the morning they’re just about ready to send someone to come make sure I;m awake and coming. Sometimes it’s kinda like I have 20 or so eyes on me like hawks. Luckily it’s getting a little more relaxed now, so it’s not so bad anymore.

Anyways, once I got there, our Cairo guide was there too, Noha, and she wanted to make sure I saw the inside, so she took me over quickly to the tomb of the 2^nd pyramid so I could go inside, which I was very appreciative of, I had been quite sad thinking I was going to miss it. Though that was also fast too because I didn’t want to keep the group waiting and felt kinda bad. It was amazing as well, though, I wish I could gone through it much slower. But that’s ok, it just means I have to come back again.

marhaba!

It's been so crazy, nonstop going and going so I haven't had much time to write or anything. We do have a 7 hour drive to sinai tomorrow, hopefully i'll be able to get everything in order and recorded, i've been seriously remiss in my journal too. Well, it's still as absolutely amazing as when I got here, well actually it's even more so. I've already had a great adventure, one that Erica would especially appreciate. Basically I was awake all night tuesday night finishing my papers, but I did get them sent off by about 4 am :) Our wake up call was to be 6:00 and then on the buses to leave at 7am. So it rang,I answered with every intention of getting up, then kinda fell back to sleep until 7:30. I rushed to put everything together, ran down to the hotel lobby, and found no one. So i was a little worried, but looked around thinking someone for sure would have waited for me, though was wondering why no one came to to my room to get me. I checked with the desk and found that everyone had checked out(i think even me supposedly) and they had left(I found out later I had missed them by about 5 minutes). SO basically I found myself rather alone and without contact to anyone and no way for anyone to contact me. And that night we were to leave for Luxor, not coming back to the same hotel until the day after. i definitely did not want to miss that (especially since they had somehow missed a ticket for that for me too so had to quickly get me one) or anything, so i decided to go find them, planning on three main spots I could catch them throughout the day. I had the hotel call a taxi for me to go to the Giza pyramid complex, they charged me 100 LE, much more than I could have if i went to corner to get a taxi for myself, but at the moment i was more concerned with finding everybody. It was a really nice ride though, my driver kinda acted like a guide, pointing out things to me and slowing down for me to take pictures of certain buildings. It took about an hour through Cairo traffic to get there, then he dropped me off at the gates. To be continued ( because i am way too tired to keep writing)...

:)

hi, I'm here! It's absolutely amazing, I still don't believe it!!! Went to the old city after arriving into our hotels, driving past the city of the dead, I almost had to sleep out on the streets, but don't worry they got me a room, and hopefully a ticket for tomorrow's flight to luxor, we walked around the bazaar for about an hour, it was amazing how similar yet how different things are, it reminded me of tiajuana a little, yet it was also totally different, and apparently they really like blondes here, I could have walked out of there with about 50 husbands and twice as many boyfriends :) umm i'll write better later, and don't worry  i found out why we're supposed to bring along the pepto bismol,good night.