06
Aug, 2018

By Quentin Stickley

I’m not going to lie, the last week at Akko was difficult. I was physically and mentally exhausted, almost every joint in my body was sore, swollen, and/or blistered, and I wanted nothing more than to sleep for at least a week straight. Going up to the tel each day was increasingly difficult, especially when we reached the midpoint of the week and prepared to stop excavating and start cleaning the site and putting protections in place for the next season. I like digging – sweeping up dirt, clipping weeds, and tossing heavy sandbags aren’t nearly as enjoyable.

Wednesday was the last day of excavation proper, and I hadn’t really found anything special, other than a tiny red bead and several cakes of iron slag. I was okay with that. Getting a special find is a huge morale boost, but I think if you go into the dig expecting one and you don’t find anything for a long period of time, it can actually slowly drain your mood. So I had gotten myself into a headspace where I was content with looking at the neat things the other diggers found – Egyptian scarabs, a nearly intact crucible, and even Tel Akko’s first in-context cylinder seal were all found in or adjacent to my square – and not expecting to uncover anything more remarkable than an ancient stone block. Imagine my surprise when a light sweep uncovered what looked like a twisting white fragment of something, possibly a piece of a seashell, with a strange, rounded blue protrusion. A few brisker sweeps, and the object came loose: a sitting figurine with large blue eyes, round ears, and yellow painted markings.

I jumped up and brought the object to my square supervisor, who seemed surprised. Both she and my area supervisor first guessed that the object was modern and had been planted by someone working on the site, because in addition to its very shallow location, none of the staff had ever seen anything like it and it was in very good condition, with only one ear and fragments of the hands broken off. The staff eventually decided that it was probably ancient. After we returned to our base camp and showed the object to the staff members who had remained there for the day, we learned that a very similar object had been found at the tel in 1977 during the excavations supervised by Moshe Dothan, although Dothan’s example had been in rougher shape.

Reactions to what quickly earned the nickname “the demon monkey” were mixed. People either found it adorable, or declared that I would now be cursed or haunted. Speculation intensified the next day when I was sweeping the square about a meter away from where I had found the “demon monkey,” and my brush turned up yet another figurine, which on close examination appeared to be an anthropoid baboon, possibly from Egypt. Although the two figurines were very different in style, the fact that they both seemed to depict non-human primates only fueled the rumor mill, and by the end of the day there were several running theories as to my true nature:

  • Cursed by “the monkey god.”
  • Blessed by “the monkey god.”
  • Chosen as prophet or servant of “the monkey god.”
  • “The monkey whisperer.”
  • Actually the god Thoth in disguise, capable of spontaneously generating ancient monkey figurines (from my ears, for some reason).

While it remains to be seen whether I am cursed or blessed, finding those monkeys was an experience I will never forget. I’m holding out to see if next year someone finds the barrel they came from.

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24
Jul, 2018

By Quentin Stickley

The Living City: Old Akko, Conservation, and Gentrification

The old city of Akko is unlike any other historical site I’ve visited in that it is a place where people are still living and making history much like they did in the past. It has not been roped off and sterilized for easy digestion. When you walk into the old city, you will encounter people selling fruit on the street, feeding stray cats or shooing them from their doorsteps, and going to and from their places of worship. Colorful street art decorates walls and doors. There are shops and attractions catering to tourists, certainly, but the old city is also a place where people make their homes, raise their children, and practice their religions. It is a delight to visit, but I am always concerned with the fuzzy line between visiting the city and encroaching upon the lives of Akko’s residents. Gentrification as a result of tourism is a grave threat to historic neighborhoods, especially those like Old Akko which are populated mostly by minority Arabs who are also relatively less wealthy. Since UNESCO designated the old city as a World Heritage Site. Building codes meant to preserve the historic structures have made it more expensive for residents to improve their homes, making life in the old city less feasible for many people who live there.

The nearby site of the ancient harbor, Caesarea provides a good example of a gentrified historical site. In addition to its ancient Roman and Byzantine remains, Caesarea was a Crusader site, and later historic buildings still stand, such as the “Bosnian Mosque” built by immigrants from Bosnia who founded a fishing village there in the 19th century. Today, however, the Crusader city at Caesarea feels empty. The buildings have been turned into restaurants and souvenir shops; the people there are all either tourists or people whose job it is to cater to them. Caesarea is a wonderful site with a lot of historical value, but seeing the old city there after coming from Akko made me feel sad. How many people did gentrification displace there? I say all of this aware that I am myself a tourist, and as a student of archaeology who is passionate about preserving historical and archaeological sites. If there is a healthy middle ground between preserving ancient structures and preserving the lives built by the people who now occupy them, I certainly couldn’t tell you where it might lie. But visiting Akko has impressed upon me the importance of seeking such a middle ground, and the fact that historical sites are not frozen in the past. As long as people continue to occupy them, those people will continue to add to the rich legacy of the place.

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16
Jul, 2018

By Quentin Stickley

Digging with Chronic Pain

by Quentin Stickley. Archaeology is my passion, but as someone who lives with chronic pain, I have always been concerned that working in the field might prove impossible for me. My time at Tel Akko has demonstrated to me that although much of the excavation process involves physical labor, disabled people are not necessarily precluded from participating, either in the field or in the laboratory. Excavation is a team process, and there are many different tasks to be done, all of which are necessary for the new data to reach a state in which it can be easily accessed and manipulated for research purposes.

In recent decades, the amount of lab work done by archaeologists has increased, with the presence of archaeobotanists and zooarchaeologists on excavation teams becoming standard. Archaeobotanists study ancient plant remains, such as seeds, which have been preserved through charring by fire, and zooarchaeologists study animal bones to learn about the humans who raised or hunted those animals. Tiny objects and organic remains are filtered from soil and brought to the lab, where they must be manually checked to sort useful materials from small pieces of gravel and modern plants. Items that can be recovered this way include bones, seeds, shells, beads, and small metal pieces and potsherds. After they have been sorted and weighed, each subset of materials goes to the respective specialist who studies them for identification and analysis. Archaeologists keep careful track of the location from which each sample was recovered so that they can draw conclusions from the distribution of materials. A sample which yielded a comparatively large amount of iron slag, for example, may have come from an area that was used for refining and working metals, or a sample with a lot of chaff may have come from a grain processing area. In my experience, people either love sorting these samples or they hate it. Personally, I find it almost meditative. It requires focus, but the occasional interesting find, such as a fish tooth or an ancient bead, keeps it from becoming monotonous. There are other jobs to do off the tel as well – potsherds and bones need to be washed and marked or sorted, for example.

Even excavation may be doable with appropriate modifications and assistance. Because most of my pain is localized in my feet and knees, squatting or kneeling is very difficult for me, but I have little trouble in the field as long as I have a stool to sit on (it’s not safe to sit on the ground at our site, because of the presence of burrowing scorpions who may not appreciate running into someone’s posterior). I would encourage disabled people who are interested in doing archaeology to talk with the excavation staff and supervisors to work out accommodations or alternative tasks, and not to be shy about asking for help or taking a break if you need one. I have found that the staff here at Tel Akko are immensely understanding and helpful in this regard.

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The Living City: Old Akko, Conservation, and Gentrification
Digging with Chronic Pain