Akko at sunset

By Jennifer Munro

Monday 17th July

After a day of orientation, the students have all gone to bed anticipating the first day’s dig tomorrow. The sandbags will be coming off, the trowels and buckets will be at the ready and Tel Akko 2017 will have truly begun!

mysterious ostrich claw found at Tel Akko

By Jennifer Munro

The Mysterious Claw of Akko

Strange claw found at Tel Akko by Justin Lev Tov our Archeozoology expert

This season at Tell Akko, I, with the aid of colleague Liora Horwitz (National Natural History Collections, Hebrew University) resolved a mystery from the 2015 season. Near the end of last season, a gigantic claw (see pic) — the Akko Claw — was excavated from Nick Pumphrey’s area, QQ3. I was mystified, and took it to the Hebrew University, comparing it to birds of prey, crocodiles, sea turtles and other creatures. I also compared with an ostrich. None of these things fitted ‘my’ bone quite right, not even the ostrich. I mulled this over all year long during the off season, sending the picture to various stumped archaeological and paleontological colleagues. I was even starting to ponder the reality of Near Eastern mythological creatures out of desperation — how about a griffon? Maybe a roc (I have images of a B movie version of Sinbad and the Seven Seas ingrained in my head – I saw it as a kid, and I recall that some of his sailors were taken away by such a giant bird).

This season, Liora Horwitz visited the tel, and brought with her (knowing of the problem) a set of modern ostrich claw bones. We looked, but weren’t quite satisfied. Liora borrowed the archaeological claw to study it further in Jerusalem. There, she noticed, under a microscope, that it had been somewhat polished and cut a bit here and there. The ostrich was very close morphologically and so it must be an ostrich – there is no other bird in the greater Eurasian-African region of that size. A subspecies of ostrich used to inhabit Israel and neighboring countries, and many years ago I identified Roman-era ostrich bones from the site of Caesarea (a site to Akko’s south).

The skeleton which Liora and I were able to compare the Akko Claw with was the sub-Saharan variety, but perhaps some of the difficulty we had in identifying the bone as ostrich were due to subspecies differences. Next step will be to drop by either Harvard’s natural history museum or that of the UK, a couple of the only institutions that house skeletons of the ostrich which formerly inhabited this region, Struthio camelus syriaca. Unfortunately I’ve no plans to be in either place anytime soon: anyone heading in those directions and have room in their suitcase for an ostrich claw?

In the past, evidently, intrepid hunters or the wealthy who could employ them could eat ostrich. Today in Israel one can order ostrich steaks in upper echelon restaurants. Ostrich. It’s the other red meat.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Temperatures in Tel Akko

By Jennifer Munro

Saturday 15th July

And it’s hot! The 2017 Season is starting off on a real high. Temperatures are soaring and the humidity is set at around 97%. The average temperature for this time of year is 31 degrees, but it seems we have 34 this year. Students arrive tomorrow…

Tel Akko 2017 Season starts here

By Jennifer Munro

Friday 14th of July

Staff and students are beginning to gather for the 2017 Season at Tel Akko in Israel. We’re all looking forward to a wonderful month of study, exploration, adventure and, of course, archaeology! The IDF Naval College at Akko is our host again this year, and we are sharing it with some Sea Scouts, who add a lot of noise and colour to the dining hall! Follow this blog to see what finds we have  and what mysteries we uncover. The first dig will take place on Monday 17th of July, when our daily diary blog will follow them up Tel Akko for videos and photographs. Welcome to friends old and new!

By Jennifer Munro

Wednesday 27th of July

Would you buy a rock from this man?

Once again, Jamie Quartermaine (in collaboration with Michael Sugerman) won the Find of the Day with the rock that he believes comes from the newly discovered rampart on the western side of the Tel Akko.

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Happy Birthday Lori Anne
Happy Birthday Lori Anne!
Akko at sunset
Monday 17th July
Welcome to Akko
Sunday 16th July
mysterious ostrich claw found at Tel Akko
The Mysterious Claw of Akko
Temperatures in Tel Akko
Saturday 15th July
Tel Akko 2017 Season starts here
Friday 14th of July
Jane Skinner & Tel Akko at the Society of American Archaeology Annual Meeting 2017
Ann and JT get dirty
Friday 29th July – Sandbag Day!
Thursday 28th July – Prizegiving
Wednesday 27th of July