By Whitney Hall

Perfectly Imperfect Pottery

 

When I first began excavating I was told that one good way to tell pottery from rock was from the ridges on the inside. These ridges come from the artists fingertips as they shape the inside of the clay. I remembered the ceramics class I took in highschool and the way that our fingers would make impressions in the clay as we molded it on the wheel, making it pretty recognizable. Today most things, like glass bottles, and plates, are not handmade. This means that a lot of what we make today bears no personal touch. Because the pottery we found was made with hands, even if it was on a wheel, the artist leaves his or her own signature. A lot of this personalization can be seen in the pottery handles (photos attached). A technique for making the curved handles on pots was to pull and stretch the clay into a curved shape. These handles differ from a lot of handles that we find that have perfectly smoothed handles. While these smoothed handles are more aesthetically pleasing, the more imperfect ones have more character. The artifacts that we find are from a time that was very different from the one we live in now. This can make it hard to connect with, as it is not from a way of living that we necessarily understand. A lot of the pottery we find is broken as has been discarded, similar to the way that plastic is thrown away today. As we excavate for scientific purpose, we also take a more removed viewpoint. While we find lots of different artifacts on the tel that can be hard to connect with, I think that the more imperfect pottery is the artifact that I can connect with most. The imprints of the artist hands allow me to imagine just who made the artifacts that we excavate and wash.

By Whitney Hall

Baha’i Gardens

While I found the program through my interest in archaeology I have been pleasantly surprised at the amount of religious connection to both the work that we are doing as well as the sites we are visiting. I was slightly intimidated for the program as I thought that I would be the only person whose main area of study was not archaeology. Within the first few days I met tons of other people who also studied religion just like me. This past weekend we visited the Baha’i Gardens that happen to be inside of Akko! As a religious studies major this was a really incredible experience for me. The Bahai Gardens are considered the holiest site for the Baha’i religion, as it is the resting place of Baha’u’llah, the founder of the religion. Not only did we get to visit the beautiful gardens but we were also able to visit the shrine in which Baha’u’llah is buried. This burial site was chosen because the founder lived in Akko before his death. While I, as well as many other members of the group, might not practice the Baha’i religion personally it was still really cool to be able to visit a site that for some is incredibly holy. The Gardens were a lot larger than I assumed they would be. It was mostly manicured hedges and red and white flowers. I assumed it would be more flowers of different varieties but for the amount of space they had there were not a lot of flowers. Once we walked past the entrance we arrived at a large gate. Beyond it a series of hedges leading up to the shrine which we were able to go inside. Inside were several small rooms where members of the faith come to individually pray inside. The site also includes dormitories that house members of the religion that stay there to volunteer and learn. Visiting Akko’s Baha’i Gardens was an incredible way to learn about one of the newest and fastest growing religions in the world accompanied by incredible plants and flowers.

Perfectly Imperfect Pottery
Baha’i Gardens