Week Six & Post-Season

Sunday, August 4th

I finally gather the willpower to refuse a sleep-in and instead go on a day trip. I decide on Beit She'arim, a Jewish necropolis not too far away. It takes two buses and a small trek to get there. The town itself was founded in the 1st century BCE, but most burials date to the 2nd-4th centuries CE. It's not a giant site but there are a fair number of stone tombs to inspect. One particularly large cafe is the Cave of Coffins which was amazing to see; there are several rooms full of coffins and some of them are beautifully decorated with various reliefs of animals, flowers and other imagery. There are other smaller caves with preserved writings outside the tombs. The whole thing was really impressive to see. I manage to catch a sherut (shared taxi) back to the first transfer point and wait a few minutes more for the bus home.

Monday, August 5th

The entire day is spent working on straightening this section in 169. It was that ugly, and I am that dedicated to the art of flat planes that it's a time-consuming effort. I miss the last bucket chain because Elise has requested my aid in using the elevations instrument.

Tuesday, August 6th

I continue sectioning and am able to finish it, so it runs pretty perpendicular to the ground and runs evenly across. However, it will be the last of my excavation efforts at Dor because this is the last day of digging. After breakfast, everyone is tasked with sweeping the area.
We also have some area tours. D2 and D4 make separate visits and listen to Yuli explain the progress made in D5. Together, D2 and D5 visit D4 and hear the same thing there.

At pottery reading, Molly usually helps Elise with recording, but she has to take a final quiz for her field school class, so I take over for the next 40 minutes.

Wednesday, August 7th

We're getting very close to the end now. We do another sweep-down of D5 before returning to D1 and weeding the leftover bits that didn't get done at the beginning of the season. I do the same in a section of D5 that was left unexcavated. The weeding has to be done so the aerial photographs can get clean pictures of the site. We have to take down the shades as well, and that was a large collective effort, as D5 is a fairly large area, with a fairly large shade. We push it down the slope, rolling it as we go. Once it's at the bottom, everyone gets on one side of it, and heaves it up to one shoulder. We had to walk it back up the slope and to the main grounds outside the container. It was not an easy task - one entire side of me was left muddy because of the dirt and condensation on the tarp.
There is a leftover boulder that has to be broken apart, so various people take their turns with a sledgehammer. Once it's small enough to be carried out, all the broken shards have to be taken out. So we form a mini bucket-chain to the top. I was the second-from-the-top, so I passed them to Elise; she'd dump them and throw them back, aiming for David's head. You have to make your own entertainment, sometimes.

Things were well in hand, so Yuli sent me to the Glasshouse to help with whatever jobs they had there. I helped with washing the bones and placing them into the sun to dry.

We had one final pottery reading, but it started really late. The woman who usually does it had to do the reading for another group, so she couldn't get to us until 6:00. Miraculously, we were able to finish before dinner.

I skipped the Kfar meal though, and went to the mall with Sarah E. We had dinner at Aroma and then went shopping. We each had nice dresses we wanted to wear for the final night but no shoes. That just won't do. We got lucky pretty early on as we found a store that had a two-for-$20 deal. It was a successful night and we went home happy.

Thursday, August 8th The final day! Much of the group goes to the Glasshouse but I head up to the Tel with a few others. We begin the day by sweeping all of D5 for final pictures. The staff and supervisors from the other areas help as well. When that was done, I moved to D2 and did more of the same.
I carried sandbags down to D4 so they could begin covering their walls or other features and keep them protected. When we ran out of sandbags, I and some others helped to make more. We also formed a never-ending bucket chain from the dirt heap to the areas of D4 that were covered in plastic sheeting so it could be backfilled. The process: buckets are filled, passed down the line to the area, dumped and empty ones are tossed to someone who stacks them and carries them back to the beginning, where it repeats. This continues until the area is filled. After some time of solid bucket chains, someone calls for a water break and we can take a breather.
After this first water break, Sarah E. asks me to help her with laying down the plastic sheets for D5. We had to work fast because though D4 is a big area, D2 was next and is a smaller area, so it wouldn't be much time before it was our turn for the backfill. The task went faster when people were free to come over and help lay down sheets and rocks (for weight). Finally, the entirety of Tel Dor comes together and everyone who is able works the bucket chain to backfill. It was a good chain too, since everyone knew how to fill and throw a bucket, and we had very few gaffes. It's also possible that I sort of accidentally covered someone with dirt (the area beneath had to get covered with dirt anyway, so it wasn't a total loss) and it's also possible that I was spitefully covered in return. All in good fun! (And I mean that, it was a strangely fun day, even if I did end it completely covered in dirt.) After a lovely watermelon break, we return to the bucket chain and are actually able to finish it in time to take the bus home, which apparently has not always happened in seasons past.

Later on, Yuli and Elise request my help with some computer work - it won't all get done that day, but we got a head start. I had time enough to get pretty for the party. It was a large barbecue and I stayed up all night because I wanted to say goodbye to people who were leaving that night or early the next day. I would be staying on at the Kfar for a few days to help out, so I wasn't in any rush to get anywhere.

Friday, August 9th

It is a stupidly early morning, a 5:30 wake-up call (and I definitely did not get enough sleep!) because we have to head to the Glasshouse to help with their last-minute work, and do some of our own. I have to hand in the keys to my room but I'm allowed to leave my things behind and move out later. At the Glasshouse, Elise has brought along the computer so we can work on top plans. They all have to be edited because some loci have changed shape or otherwise don't look right. We were going to head back to the Kfar early but Yuli misplaced her keys - it caused a lot of concern since she had more than just her car keys on the chain! We looked everywhere but couldn't find it - I actually suspected it ended up in a box and got moved out. Yuli had to call someone to fetch her spare keys from the Kfar but that would take some time. So we settled back in and got to work.

Once we ate lunch and got back to the Kfar, I was able to take a little nap, which boosted my energy considerably. I went back into the office to help Elise some more, and we worked through the night. For dinner, the guys of D4 started up a fire and cooked a stew with the leftovers from the party (chicken wings, hot dogs and vegetables - interesting!)

Saturday, August 10th

More work on top plans with Elise, and we alternate a little bit, so I get hands-on time with Photoshop. We work together until lunch, which is another barbecue of burgers and sausages. After lunch, I have another job, working with the database. I have to go through the basket list and cancel the tags of the baskets we are not keeping. I also enter "bad context" to those shell tags deemed unworthy. The big job was proofreading the basket list, making sure it was all spelled correctly, taking out any mistakes or repeats; I made it grammatically correct as well, which wasn't totally necessary to anyone but myself.
When that's done, I see Elise is moving along fine without me, so I go back to work on locus sketches. There is a dinner interlude of a semi-shakshouka (tomato-based stew with veggies and eggs, though I think we were missing tomatoes... and someone added sliced hot dogs) Afterward, I return to work and I'm able to complete a couple more sketches before 2:00 am.