By Sarah Kammer

When in Israel, Work with Teens

Community archaeology. Essentially, it’s a way of involving the local community in the history and current activities surrounding archaeological sites. While each community archaeology project has their own unique way of achieving this goal, the overall intent of these projects are to raise awareness and a sense of connection to the places that archaeologists are digging for the people who live nearby.

The community archaeology program at Tel Akko connects American university students and Israeli teens with one another to teach conservation and excavation techniques. The first day established relationships through building with stones and mortar, which ended with lots of laughter, a mortar birthday cake, and newfound friendships abound. The second day developed the camaraderie of the first day by putting our newly acquired skills to the test with a real conservation project on walls. These days of conservation were followed by a day where we looked at the city of Akko through the teens’ eyes. They lead us around on a photo scavenger hunt adventure to see personal important places – an adventure that spontaneously joined us with another citywide scavenger hunt! The rest of the program was spent working on the tel together, finding and learning about the things the ancients left behind.

Overall, the community archaeology program was an amazing experience filled with fun, learning, and friends. The teens I worked with will hold a special place in my heart, along with all the wonderful memories we made together. I’m beyond glad that I had the chance to work with and learn from such amazing teens. My life has been enriched because of it. I was proud to watch them get their completion certificates, as I felt, and still do, we had become part of a wide-ranging family in the few weeks we were in the program together.

At the teens’ program graduation, as I was chatting with my main partner, her mom came over to me, started to shake my hand, and profusely thanked me for everything while inviting me to come stay with them anytime. I couldn’t help but be touched by her kindness and generosity, and only wish there was a way I could return the gesture.

This is why community archaeology exists. It makes the archaeological site relevant to the local community, all the while making lasting connections for all the participants, local and foreign. It leaves an impression, that, sometimes, you aren’t aware of right away or you never even imagined possible.

By Sarah Kammer

Professional Conservateur in the Making… Maybe Not

The conservation project and community outreach program at Tel Akko is unique. It includes two different aspects, which I will tackle in separate writings since trying to put them together would do an injustice to both. Though they are intertwined, they are very different facets of a really wonderful whole.

I went into the field school knowing nothing about field conservation, except that it is really important for the preservation of sites. I was intrigued, and wanted to do a project that furthered my knowledge of conservation and how the logistics of it worked on a real site. The conservation program started off by teaching us about a variety of mortars, what they are used for, and how to make them. We made several mortars and in teams built projects with them. The entire day was spent laughing and joking with our partners and other teams. We continued our project with a day of putting our new knowledge to practical use on the walls of the conservation center, learning how to fix loose and disintegrated mortar and how to carve stones in order to piece them together for repairing arches, walls, and other stone work. The field school also had several lectures and tours that were to inform participants about the importance, problems, and ways to conserve old cities. Finally, students who worked with the conservation project specifically got a chance to work with a professional conservateur, Dr. David Zell, on the walls of the archaeological site of Akko. With the help of Dr. Zell, we were able to put together a specific conservation plan for our individual walls and present our plan to Dr. Killebrew.

As aforementioned, I didn’t know much about conservation before Tel Akko, and I am extremely glad for the basis it gave me of the field. I thought perhaps this would give me a direction in which I wanted to go for my career. After going through this program I can say with certainty that I do not want to become a conservateur. It is a skill that I do not wish to develop further, as the field is not for me. While I am thankful for the basis the program has given me, it has also taught me that this is not what I want to do as a career, which I am even more thankful for.

By Sarah Kammer

Dreams Really Do Come True

When I was younger, I watched a documentary on a city called Caesarea. From then on out, I was fascinated by the place. Caesarea has an intriguing back story, and was a massive marvel of human engineering in its prime. Herod the Great built the site essentially as an apology present to the Roman emperor Augustus in the hope that Augustus would forgive him for fighting on the side of Mark Antony and Cleopatra when they lost.

Thus, Herod created Caesarea around 22-10 BCE in the spirit and image of a Roman city with the full intent of it becoming an important center for trade and commerce for the Roman Empire. Part of why Caesarea is such an amazing feat of human ingenuity, besides the sheer massive size of the city, is that it included a fully manmade harbor. The artificial harbor created another place where maritime trade could flourish than in the natural bays of Akko and Haifa. Many important historic things happened in the city, including, allegedly, St. Paul’s imprisonment.

Years after watching that fateful documentary, I loved, and still love, anything that even remotely has to do with Caesarea. It was a place of wonder that I enjoyed considerably more than your average person, and even more so now after our visit to the site.

One of the best parts of the day of our trip was getting to speak with a current excavator of Caesarea. She showed me that there is still a lot to be learned from a place I love. Every year new discoveries are being made that shape what we know about the city itself, as well as the entire coast of Israel.

Being able to come to Israel has been a wonderful experience and our adventure to one of my top desired cities to visit was one of the happiest moments I have had on this month-long trip. However, being led around by one of the original excavators of the site was icing on the cake for me. It gave me so much more insight into a place I already loved, that I will be forever grateful for Martha Risser, one of the ceramic specialists of the Tel Akko excavation, for showing us around a city she clearly still holds close to her heart.

I never expected I would be able to visit Caesarea in person because of where it was – Israel. Until last fall, the idea of going to Israel had never crossed my mind. Though I yearned to visit Caesarea and several other sites, I didn’t believe it was going to be a possible endeavor for me for several reasons, a major one being the current political climate in the country. Yet here I sit, on the outskirts of the Old City of Akko, Israel. Moral of the story? Dreams, no matter how impossible they seem at one point in life, really can come true.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

When in Israel, Work with Teens
Professional Conservateur in the Making… Maybe Not
Dreams Really Do Come True
The Magic of Archaeology