By Salem Arvin

Farewell to the Tel!

by Salem Arvin. As I pack my bags and get ready for the flight from Tel-Aviv, I’m reflecting on some of the amazing adventures we’ve had. This was my first ever dig and to be honest it was hard. Waking up at 4:30 every morning to get on the bus so that we avoid working in the midday Israeli sun, eating smaller meals, having to keep our meat and dairy separate, not to mention the manual labor that my body just wasn’t used to. The first few days of excavation the backs of my thighs were numb from crouching, my arms were tired from sandbagging, and I had blisters from tying said sandbags. By the time dinner rolled around at 7pm I was ready to pass out. But between our weekly dinners with Dr. R, our weekend excursions all around Israel, eating at Uri Buri and getting to travel with some of my favorite fellow Miami students (as well as my new Penn State friends) I’ve had an amazing time. I can’t believe it’s over.

I’ve learned so much about Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and archaeology overall throughout the past four weeks (shoutout to Emily for helping answer my questions revolving around religion). I’ve especially learned more than I thought possible about biblical archaeology and the Levant. I’m especially excited to have learned about and led flotation and to have furthered my experience in the field of archaeobotany. Although I’m looking to be a mesoamericanist with my dual LAS degree, I’ve had an amazing time learning to excavate with the Tel Akko team. Was it worth it? Yes. Am I ready to go home? Yes. Am I too tired to even think about climbing the stairs to the Tel again? Yes. Am I still weighing the decision between being an archaeologist and a museum professional? Yes. Would I trade this experience for any other? …Tel no.

By Salem Arvin

7 Things About Tel Akko That Will Shock You!

No, this is not Buzzfeed. Clickbait title aside, in this blog I’m going to delve into some of the things about the field school at Tel Akko that I wasn’t expecting.

 

1.Dirt. Is. EVERYWHERE.

Yes, I’m quite aware that being an archaeologist means getting down and dirty, but when you close your mouth and hear a certain nauseating crunch you know there’s no escape. Hauling 10 buckets of dirt away to be screened can be fun if there are some interesting finds waiting for you, but occasionally it’ll seem never-ending, sweeping dirt off of dirt to make the dirty dirt less dirty. The dirt will mix with your sunscreen, get in your hair, and you won’t know where the dirt stops and your newly tanned skin begins. But once you get off the tel and get showered you’ll surely feel refreshed and proud of all of the hard work you put in that morning.

 

  1. Bees?

It’s not just a Cards Against Humanity card, y’all. In my square RR4, there are dozens of bees waiting for us every morning. It’s unbeelievable. Luckily enough these guys don’t have stingers and it can be easy to ignore them, but every once in a while I will hear a buzz in my ear or find a bee hole (they burrow?) when I’m screening and get reminded that they are very much present at this dig. They’re actually kinda cute, truth be told. Not only are the modern bees present in RR4, we actually discovered an entire ancient in situ bee-keeping vessel!

 

  1. Pottery out the wazoo

How does one square produce 25 buckets of pottery in a single morning? Because they’re digging at Tel Akko. Tel Akko at one point was known in Arabic as Tel el-Fukhar, or “mound of the potsherds”. In RR4 we call our square “pottery central”, because not only are we digging up a ton of pottery, but it’s also diagnostic and downright beautiful as well. For instance, one day I found a lovely ceramic ear!

 

  1.  Walls will fall

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Those are the words I heard in my head today when my square supervisor June asked me to take down a Persian period wall (after having been very well documented of course). Archaeologists know that our profession is inherently destructive, and we do the best to record what we can so that we can continue and move past things like these in our excavations. It takes a lot of patience, but I promise you almost nothing is more satisfying than spending the day working on a wall. At least, in my two-week experience thus far.

 

  1. Trimming balks is harder than it looks

Yeah, this is pretty self-explanatory. No one wants a crappy balk to work with, and knowing that future archaeologists will be inheriting our squares it’s best to work hard to maintain our balks, but one thing they don’t teach you in an archaeology class is how hard this can be. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, a balk is essentially the wall of your square, and trimming is making it even all across so that nothing sticks out. With rocks, pottery, and the occasional critter in our balks this can be difficult, but thanks to my supervisor I feel pretty confident in my balking ability.

 

  1. Pick your poison

Even after two weeks at Akko, the tools are starting to look worse for wear. They have to withstand lots of abuse, especially the pickaxes both big and small, buckets, and hoes (here called terreas). It’s not uncommon to pick up a bucket to realize that it has no handle, and it’s not unheard of to go try and excavate or make sandbags and having the head of your tool fall off. It’s pretty unavoidable, and so the best solution I can offer is to just laugh it off and go ask to borrow another or see if Tammy has extras. It’s no big deal after all.

 

  1. Find of the day

At the end of each weekday morning we do a thing called the find of the day, in which we vote on who found the most amazing or interesting artifact that day. It’s typically luck of the draw, and the more interesting your square, the more interesting stuff you’ll find. But nonetheless, it’s so cool to see the kinds of things that come from our dig at the tel. For instance, this season we found a blue Egyptian figurine with hieroglyphics on the back, possibly used as a figurine, we’ve found pottery with stamps in Greek, we’ve found a marble slab with latin writing on it, and much much more. There truly never is a dull day of digging here at Akko.

 

Salem Marie Arvin

By Salem Arvin

Sifting Through my Thoughts: How to better oneself

by Salem Arvin.

Living in a new place can pose many challenges, and whether emotional or physical this has the tendency to throw off even the best of us. However, in my journey to Israel for an archaeological field school at the Tel Akko site there was one thing I wasn’t expecting to feel. That feeling? Out of my element. Here I am, digging through the dirt and making discoveries in ways I couldn’t have imagined, but when it all comes down to it I have felt like a fish out of water. You see, at Miami I’ve taken courses on both Latin American and North American archaeology, I’ve taken the archaeology capstone, and I’ll even be UAing for ATH 212, the introductory archaeology class. I know the discipline, but what I didn’t realize is how much knowledge I didn’t have, and how much I could learn here at Akko.

In all honesty I know almost nothing about Old World or Biblical archaeology. While I am certified in Spanish and have worked for years on my accent and grammar, I know almost no Hebrew. I know little of other religions, and especially of the bible. I didn’t know about the chronology, the ceramics of the area, the vegetation, even the history. That was, until I started digging and attending lectures. The staff here at Tel Akko have really opened up my eyes to the history of Akko in ways I didn’t think possible at the start. It was easy to get frustrated and think “Oh, well this isn’t my specialty so I’m not worried about it”, but over time my attitude changed, and I became more and more intrigued with my surroundings and what I could learn here.

As academics-in-training it can be hard to come to terms with the fact that we don’t, in fact, know everything. And that is OKAY, because even more valuable than always being right or always being the smartest person in the room is being willing and able to absorb new information and maintain a positive attitude. My time at Akko has taught me not only about its Crusader history or the history of the Ottomans, of religious practice and of Israel as a whole, but also how to better myself. And with that in mind, I will continue to cherish my time here and work to further my own understanding of the archaeology of Akko.

 

Happy digging!

Salem Marie Arvin

 

Farewell to the Tel!
7 Things About Tel Akko That Will Shock You!
Sifting Through my Thoughts: How to better oneself