By Allison Schwartz

Ally’s Declassified Archaeology Survival Guide

The Tel Akko Total Archaeology Field School is the first experience I have ever had with archaeology. Besides ,of course, what we see from Hollywood. In the real world you may run into snakes but you won’t fall into a pit of them like good ole’ Indiana Jones. You also won’t use your handy dandy brush to uncover the skeleton of a Dinosaur, that is a completely different profession known as “Paleontology”. It is not the same thing.  You also learn really quickly just how precious an Archaeologist’s trowel is to them. By reading this manual you will learn some handy dandy tips to help you not only get through this month of dirt and grime, but will also teach you how to have fun in Israel.

Number 1, Good Morning Tel Akko!

Every day at the Tel Akko Total Archaeology Field School we wake before the rooster. I know that because his lazy self is crowing when we are all on the Tel, having already been awake for an hour.  I knew when I arrived in Israel this summer I’d be waking up earlier than the sun, but what I wasn’t ready for was being ok with that. I am in no way a morning person, so I was completely surprised when, during the first two weeks of the trip, I was up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Then it hit me, the third week. Bright eyes turned bleary and one scoop of instant coffee turned to three. The best part? I loved every minute of it. Sure a couple hours of more sleep would have been nice, but so is the chance of getting find of the day (which I still haven’t gotten close to).

 

Number 2,  Learn how to Spell Archoe… Arkeol… Archeology

I still have trouble with this and I suppose I always will. All you need to know is that Archaeologists are treasure hunters with more paperwork… and less profit, but all the excitement!

 

Number 3, Indie had a whip… you have a brush. And yes there are snakes

We all know the look. A young and dashing Harrison Ford, idol in one hand whip in the other. It’d be cool if adventures really were death defying… but this one isn’t. Unless, of course, you use a brush to take a picture of a Scorpion… *Cough* that would be stupid…

 

Number 4,  A drink could save a Life… beach

After a long day on the Tel, which ends about 12:00 pm, you’ll find a few students at Life Beach, about five minutes walk from home base, having a beer and swimming in the Mediterranean sea. It’s five o’Clock somewhere right?  The real fun is Friday nights, after the city has died down for the Sabbath you and a few friends sit on the beach with a drink and watch Haifa in the distance.

  

Number 5,  The difference between a pastiche and a pickaxe… size matters

It’s important to know what tools you are going to use throughout the dig. Namely, a Terea(a large hoe) a brush and dustpan, a pickaxe and a pastiche are your best friends. A pastiche and a pickaxe are not  the same thing. Though the former is a miniaturized version of the latter, their uses are not interchangeable, unless you have the skill to work with what you have.

 

Number 6, Hydrate don’t DIE-drate

This tip is exactly what you think it is. DRINK WATER OR YOU WILL DIE. It is very hot here in Israel and, while you may feel dead tired… that doesn’t mean you want to be dead.

Number 7,   Work Harder not Smarter.

As a beginner to the field of Archaeology you have to realize that your role in the scheme of things is that you are a worker bee. This isn’t a bad thing because you learn a lot by listening to your supervisors. This  doesn’t mean you should slack off. The more you work the more you learn.

 

Number 8, If you’re gonna use a Terea, use gloves.

We are busy about eleven hours out of the day with about five hours of free time throughout the day. As long as what we do is safe and legal (which is easy when the drinking age is 18) the staff and faculty don’t care what we do. That being said, safety is key. Hint, hint.

Number 9,  Is that dirt or a tan?

Speaking of being dirty – you will leave the Tel covered in dirt. It will be gross and it will be mud-like and showers will be the most amazing feeling ever. Then you will get dirty again at pottery washing. Dirt is a fact of life. Accept it.

Number 10, Run to 7 DAYS like your life depends on it!

Seven days is the nearby coffee shop/ beer place( that is  not a bar), that everyone will go to for the free internet and the Goldstar Slow-brew. If you don’t get there before seven thirty in the evening you won’t be able to get on the internet and will have to go another 24 hours w/o internet access.

Number 11, You will have nightmares about shards of Pottery

You will see pottery everywhere. On the Tel you will dig up broken pieces of pottery every day. You will wash buckets of pottery every day. When that is all done and you think you finally have a break from the endless shards you will go on a tour of the beautiful Ba’hai gardens and you will walk on a seemingly endless path of G-D forsaken pottery shards.

Number 12, SUNSCREEN, JUST SUNSCREEN

Next, I don’t care who you think you are, you are not  tougher than the sun. Always put sunscreen on or you might leave here looking like that guy in the White House.  

 

Number 13,We’ll always have Akko.

This will be the most exhausting month of your life. You will be grimy, tired, exhausted, and frustrated. But, this will also be one of the best, most memorable months of your life. You will not only be doing (imho) semi-rewarding work but also meet hilarious, fun people. I’ve celebrated my twentieth birthday here and  made a couple lifelong friends here and I know when we look back we will always have Akko.

 

 

By Emily Ratvaskay

A Possible New Direction

A Possible New Direction

by Emily Ratvaskay

Introduction

I have been troubled for some time regarding what I could possibly specialize in, in the future.

I have thrown myself head-long into many archaeology courses, multiple semesters of an internship, an undergraduate associate-ship, and now a field school, as attempts to figure out my life. I am not completely sure, but I think I may have a lead.

What Happened

While on our trip around Caesarea, I spoke with Dr. Michael Sugarman about what I have been doing in college (classes and whatnot). While we spoke, I shared how much I enjoyed the idea of reconstructing past environments by taking cores of various things, especially marine sediments. Soon after, we made a quick stop at the Bird Mosaic (see picture) and heard a short lecture about the history of tsunamis in the Mediterranean, especially in regards to how long the harbor at Caesarea was in use. This lecture was given by Dr. Beverly Goodman, a geoarchaeologist.

She then went on to talk about what other work she is doing. The one which resonated with me the most was her work in Japan. She has yet to start working there, being preoccupied with her work in the Yucatan, looking for Pre-Columbian harbors and her work in Caesarea, but it sounds quite intriguing. Her work in Japan will be centered in Okinawa, searching for evidence of a tsunami that occurred in the 1700s, according to historical sources.

After she finished her talk, I asked her if similar work has been done elsewhere in Japan. It appears that there hasn’t been. I find this to be an intriguing possible opportunity…

Elaboration

I love the idea of working with reconstructing past environments in Japan and using that information to support historical records of tsunamis or other disasters. Reconstructing how people in the past dealt with such things on all levels (the effects they had on trade/economy, infrastructure/government, religion, small communities vs. large communities, international relations, etc.)

Ever since I was little I was a nerd when it came to geology and anything about Japan (language, culture, history, geology, archaeology, etc.). As time went on, I realized my main passion was anthropology, specifically the subfield of archaeology. I still enjoyed geology and learning about Japan, but my interest in both had declined. Moreso with my interest in Japan, because I haven’t taken official classes on such topics in college.

On account of these things, I wanted to keep those two interests in mind when deciding what I would like to specialize in, however, I was hesitant to put much stock into the idea of working in Japan.

My Thoughts & Fears

I wanted, and would still like to, keep my options open. I was, and still am, worried that I will find myself in a place or in a position that I get bored with – a thing I pursue on a whim, just to realize that it isn’ t for me, and being unable to turn back. Cornered in a job that I should love, but don’t because I  idiotically ran off in the opposite direction and got lost.

I fear that I will dive head-long into it, not knowing what I am getting myself into, and realizing that I hate it, or finding deathly boring, or finding that I am actually horrible with dealing with the hard science of it all.

I fear that even if I am ok with understanding the hard science, that I will get bogged down in it and forget about the people involved (both past and present).

I fear that I will forget why I am doing this job: why the past is important and why people care about it.

I fear that even if I don’t forget about such things, that I won’t be able to properly communicate with the public, thus continuing the gap of misunderstanding between academia and the general public.

I fear many things, so, so many things… There are so many possible things that could happen if I chose this path (bad, good, and in between). Granted, that is true of any path I take, including the one of continued indecisiveness.

I think I will read up on and learn more about this possibility before saying anything concretely. But I will admit that it feels good to finally see one feasible route I can take in the future.

By Mary Owen

Archaeology Vs. Paleontology or, Why We Don’t Find Dinosaur Bones on the Tel

by Mary Owen.

 

So, if you know anything about archaeologists you might know that they might have one of two favorite movie series, Indiana Jones or Jurassic Park (Akko is a Jurassic Park group), both of which aren’t really archaeology (sorry, but Indiana Jones is a REALLY bad archaeologist). Jurassic Park isn’t even close to archaeology and yet, if an archaeologist tells someone what they do for a living, if that person doesn’t ask about Indiana Jones, they’re going to ask that archaeologist if they’ve ever found any dinosaur bones like in Jurassic Park. What most people don’t understand is archaeology and paleontology are two ENTIRELY different fields of study!

So what’s the difference anyway? Well, paleontology studies a much much older time frame from archaeology. Humans and dinosaurs never lived together, much to the annoyance of Flintstones and Creationism fans alike, I’m sure. Paleontology focuses on life much much older than humans, dinosaurs being the most famous example, but they are not the only thing paleontologists study. They also study ancient plant and sea life as well as many animals that can’t be considered dinosaurs. Paleontologists tend to only be able to find fossilized remains of the things they are trying to study. This means they don’t tend to have biological remains and instead find either mineralized versions (like with bones or exoskeletons) or impressions (like plants or footprints) of the remains. But like I mentioned, archaeologists don’t study these sorts of things.

And what do archaeologists study then if it’s not dinosaurs? Well, as a branch of anthropology, they study humans! It isn’t even just their bones either. Some professors like to describe archaeology as the study of people’s stuff, whether that’s their buildings, their possessions ,or their trash, it’s all a part of archaeology. Here in the site at Tel Akko, we mostly find a lot of broken ceramics, usually in the form of so very much pottery, though other items such as figurines have been found here. We also find a lot of more modern animal remains in the form of shells and bones.

 

Of course this also leads to more questions. Why do we even study archaeology? Why would you want to study dead people and their trash? Well, it really depends on who you ask! People want to study it for all sorts of different reasons. To use myself as an example, I wanted to dig holes but couldn’t pass the math requirement for geology. Most other people have questions about the past they want answered. Some of the questions people are looking at here at Tel Akko include, what kind of plants were people eating or using, what sorts of domesticated animals were found here, or where was the harbor actually located before it receded to its current position?

Through our excavations we hope to find the answers to these questions, and similar ones so we can gain better insight on humans throughout history and prehistory and NOT dinosaur bones!

By Owen Jenney

4am Just Getting Started

by Owen Jenney.

 

Waking up the first day of going to the excavation site was easy enough, with the four am alarm going off, my roommates and I had already been awake for about thirty minutes. We were nervously awaiting what was to become of us when our group was transported to the Tel for the first time. Everyone seemed to be going through the same thing, all waiting in the coffee room. It was silent, no one knew anyone else and we were still jet lagged and tired. I know I wasn’t thinking of making friends. I was contemplating how I was going to be able to get through four weeks waking up around four every day of the week, with the extremely generous addition of sleeping in till seven on the weekends.

We waited for the bus which pulled up around five twenty, and arrived at the Tel with the sun just coming up. I was still frazzled from sleep deprivation and the early wake up call, and all I could think about was my bed and nothing else. Due to this the basic tour of where we would be working for four weeks flew over my head. The day of fieldwork also just flew by in a haze, it was not extremely laborious; just clean-up of sandbags and general sweeping of the sites. But I was still just thinking about how we would have to wake up at such a terrible hour every day, even not getting much of a break on the weekends. I love my sleep, I would rather nap then see and hang with friends. I would rather be in bed than anywhere else. It’s my comfort zone and getting out of bed makes leaves you at the mercy of the day with little to no control on the proceedings.

My mother and father were always worried about me, due to me having clinical depression. Sleeping the day away everyday was something that scared them, but I loved being alone and unconscious rather than going out and living. I knew it was a problem too, but I couldn’t help myself, I didn’t have to worry about anything while I was asleep. So, when I approached them with the idea of a trip to Israel for a study abroad over the summer, they were all for it. I guess in a way I did it for them. I didn’t want them to worry about me and my sleeping habits and anti-social behavior.

This strenuous sleep schedule was quite literally a wake-up call. I couldn’t just lay in bed and do nothing anymore. Structure, just like in my semesters at Binghamton, was put back into place. I have a role and I’m a cog in a machine in which everyone is needed for it to run smoothly. I had something to wake up for – a responsibility to these people I barely know and I still don’t know even a quarter of their names. Suddenly, I had a purpose. It’s the purpose I’ve been looking for: to wake up every morning, to sweat and to work among strangers that quickly became my close friends. The Tel does that to you, even though its dirty and straining, it’s a common struggle everyone can relate to.

This though doesn’t mean it was easy to break my habit of sleeping. With the added addition of jetlag, I did nap through the first couple of days during free hours in-between lunch and lecture. I really did try my best to be up and about, but the moment I lay down on my bed after the Tel, I just knocked out. Later on, maybe a week in, I was talking to my new friends.  They told me that they got the impression that during the first few days I was going to be the antisocial kid that talked to nobody, the person always in his room and keeping to himself. From my perspective, I believe I did pretty well compared to how I was at home. I stayed awake all through the Tel, went to lunch and dinner, as well as the lecture. But the first days it seems were the most important to socialize and find like-minded people, so me doing the bare minimum and not reaching out or giving the option for someone else to, probably wasn’t a good start.

My comfort zone of sleep and my bed were still too strong a pull on me from months of doing it at home, I would actually have to try to stay awake, even though it’s a day of hard labor from 5:30 to 12:30, followed by lunch, free time (the danger zone), pottery washing, lectures, and then finally dinner. What the hell did I get myself into? Was this a mistake? Did I bite off way more than I could chew? I haven’t felt this amount of fatigue in a long time, and even while writing this I’m having trouble with thoughts of just one quick nap. People who have already been through the program say it gets easier, yet I find myself waking up closer and closer to the deadline of when the bus shows up at five thirty.

The routine of the Tel has become second nature, with work usually going by quickly due to the rewarding tasks that lead to finds and huge sherds, but the fatigue is always there. I’m not the only one either, my roommates and I have had to set 4 alarms in order to properly wake up. The coffee room where everyone hangs out before the bus has lost foot traffic until the final minutes before we leave. Yet, even with my problems about sleep and my troubles with isolating myself in my daily life, I have yet to have a more gratifying experience then my current time in Tel Akko. Being in the field applying the skills you’ve learned while at the program, rather than just listening in a lecture room writing it down for a test and forgetting it first chance you get. The experts and professors you meet really kindle your interest in every subject they talk about, where you can see they are truly passionate about what they are teaching. Plus, working with them in the field means they can answer any questions you might have or show me a better technique on how to use the tools given to me. Overall, my current experience of Tel Akko has been a positive one. The friendships I have made here in such a short time were all possible because I decided to get out of bed, and get started.

By Alex Rose Anderson-Fosco

The only find that matters

by Alex Fosco. Find of the day is a tradition at Akko, it keeps everyone motivated and invested in the work no matter how tedious or exhausting. The finds are cool but the support from your friends is really the deciding factor. This is sometimes frustrating but in essence, beautiful. When you put it on perspective, not three weeks into the dig we have found deep connections with people we may have otherwise never known. My day would not be complete without my square husbands, the sometimes clever (emphasis on sometimes) banter makes the day go by a lot faster.

Finds at the Tel

Coco is a  beast with a pickaxe, sometimes to my dismay as he is rather averse to the idea of cleaning up after himself,

(typical man as my square supervisor likes to say). With that in mind, he is always reminding me to drink water and take breaks.  Wei likes to abandon us for the cult that is Survey but his can-do positive attitude makes up for any lost time helping me sweep. In the rest of my area, we have a special bondl, forged by the collective fear of pottery which has in earnest turned into a borderline phobia. Much to the chagrin of our peers, we have pulled up nearly a 100 buckets of pottery sherds in just a short time. At first, we were ecstatic, but we were so young and innocent then. On a typical Tel day,
you will find many of us recovering at the local cafe or beach commiserating or being berated by those less keen on pottery washing. Lois from the square next door is the subtle wild child. She is found at the beach after lunch, where you can have pre-pottery washing pick-me-up and a deep meaningful conversation.

Finds in the “leisure” hours

When I’m not in the tel mindset I have what is (by me and only me) dubbed “The Squad”. We shift daily, welcoming

anyone who will show up. We explore the old city, the pizza places and in the evenings frequent the beach for long walks and talks followed by spontaneous splash-fights. We have celebrated everything from small successes to birthdays, and to say I love these people would be an understatement. In three years at Penn State and twenty-one and a half years of life, I have never met so many people that spoke my language. Trevor and I bond over missing our animals, he has an adorable cat who he makes a point of showing us once an hour, and while I would never admit it to him, it’s really comforting. Jack makes sure that when I go off on late night adventures (before 10:30 curfew of course) that I make it back safely and never have to go alone unless I want to. There is Chuckles, formerly Chris who, true to his given name, is always someone who can make me smile. Call it nerdy but listening to Mike talk about the life of William Marshal or he and Allison discussing the true reasoning behind the crusades makes me feel a sense of home that is so rare and especially strange in such a faraway place.  No Phonecian inscription, Egyptian scarabs, or even gold could outweigh the true find of the day. All 24 precious hours we spend together at Akko; Squaremates, Friends and staff alike we have the common denominator that brings us all together, finding Tel Akko.

By Alexis Dailey

My Journey to Tel Akko

by Alexis Dailey.

 

If there is one saying I find always rings true, it would be “hindsight is 20/20.” As a third grader, I opened up a National Geographic magazine with an eager lust to learn about the world around me. The content inside overflowed with beautiful flowers, mysterious animals, and revolutionary photos of space. But the article I found most intriguing was explaining archaeology and the importance of studying the past in order to better understand humans in both the ancient and modern contexts. As I went home that afternoon, the first words out of my mouth were, “Mom! I think I want to be an archaeologist when I grow up!” As parents often do, she patted my head and told me I could grow up to be anything my heart desired.

A few years later, I began researching colleges and majors. After several potential majors and future job options, I finally settled on attending Penn State as a Biology major with the end goal focusing particularly on research. My family, friends, and teachers gladly supported this decision and told me I would excel in the science field. With all of the love and support, I headed off to college dead-set on graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology. However, my life quickly took a turn when I realized I hated every minute of this goal.

Whether or not you believe in fate, I ended up in a Special Living Option for my freshman year dorm assignment. This particular program was only open to students living on the floor and included presentations by professors, dinners with academic advisors, and connections to nearly every professional and student at Penn State. After a few weeks of college, and plenty of stressful nights, I attended a dinner with a few academic advisors from the Liberal Arts College. At the time, I had no real intention of finding a new major, I just figured some of the information they had prepared for us would help me plan my electives. Instead, the dinner ignited a spark I only recognized at the end of the semester. Finals were approaching and instead of enjoying my classes, I was only resenting attending college, especially for Biology. Eventually I hit my breaking point and ran to the Undergraduate Advisor in charge of our Special Living Option. Once she calmed me down, we discussed my interests in science and history. She recommended I attend a few introductory Anthropology classes to see if I fitted into this program better. Reluctantly, I agreed and by the end of the semester, I had fallen in love with the major.

Sophomore year began far better than freshman year, as I now had reliable friends at school and classes I was excited to take. Skipping ahead to the end of October, a representative of the Liberal Arts College gave a mini lecture about an opportunity to study abroad in Greece for the spring semester and have the opportunity to earn a minor in Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies. Because the program had been low on student interest, the department had decided to open up the application process for an extra week in an attempt to gain a few more participants. With low expectations, I applied to the program. Almost immediately, I received my acceptance letter to the program. Up until that point, I had never even mentioned this adventure to my mother. With butterflies in my stomach, I called her and asked for her permission to study abroad. She was overjoyed to hear I had the chance to live out one of my life long dreams and visit Greece. After hanging up, I logged on to my account and signed all the required paperwork to head abroad.

By the end of January, I found myself in the middle of Athens, Greece under the supervision of Dr. Killebrew. Over the next three months, I had traveled all over mainland Greece and Crete to see the ancient archaeological sites that had peaked my fascination with ancient cultures. Although I did not work on any excavations, just being able to walk among the ruins left me overjoyed. I quickly added Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies as my second major. While on this trip though, Dr. Killebrew mentioned how she would be willing to accept any of us interested in working on her excavation site in Israel if we applied by the application deadline. Having struggled to fund my trip to Greece by myself, I knew I couldn’t possibly afford to travel to Israel as well. I toyed with the idea of working on an archaeological excavation continuously after that moment, but felt I would never have a real chance to actually do so.

However, this spring I applied to the Tel Akko program with high hopes for scholarships. Receiving my acceptance letter made me ecstatic and terrified at the same time. How was I possibly going to be able to afford to study abroad again if I don’t receive enough funding? Was I going to be able to live out a childhood dream for real, or would I find out I truly hated something I had longed for? I was drowning in negative thoughts until I called my mother. Once again, she was overjoyed to hear I had the chance to study abroad again. My hesitance was quickly resolved as she encouraged me to take this chance and let fate work itself out. Taking her advice, I accepted the position and began applying to as many scholarships as possible, while simultaneously picking up more hours at work. The next few months brought me the funding I needed, as well as enough pocket money to afford to pay for my trip by myself.

As a brief interjection, I grew up in a single parent household with two sisters. My mother took on as much work as she could possibly manage. Due to a lack of money, we grew up on very little and never took vacations or travelled anywhere. In both study abroad circumstances, I knew my mother would not be able to afford to pay for my trip, therefore the responsibility had been left on my shoulders. My mother has always been my biggest fan and only wanted the best for me. She reminded me how hard work always pays off, even if it takes time.

Now, I am currently sitting in Akko, Israel on my second study abroad experience working on the archaeological dig site of Tel Akko. Regardless of the endless scenarios I imagined archaeology would be, this trip has been better than anything I could have dreamed. I have met absolutely wonderful students and professors, gained valuable knowledge, and found ancient artifacts. Each day, I return home from the field tired, but find the exhaustion is worth every other aspect of the trip. Especially since I have found two special finds since the beginning of the trip. The first special find was pieces of a Phoenician mask and the second find was a painted piece of Greek pottery. Knowing how many interesting artefacts lie underneath my feet, motivates me to work hard to both excavate and study the history of Tel Akko. The most important part of working here in Akko has been realizing I have indeed chosen the correct career path, even if that means waking up at four-thirty in the morning to spend the next seven hours sweating under the hot Israeli sun.

For years, I had given up on my dream of becoming an archaeologist because I had been told, and eventually believed, I was meant to work as a researcher in Biology. Looking back now, I can see how important browsing the National Geographic magazine had truly been for me. As I stated in the beginning, “hindsight is 20/20” and you never know how influential even the smallest moments in life can be. Dreams may come and go, but finding your true calling may be simpler than you think.

 

By Abigail Zahoroiko

Barren Beauty

by Abigail Zahoroiko.

 

The definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome. That. Is. Crazy.

One of my earliest memories in school is writing out a “Who I Am” worksheet at the beginning of third grade and putting “archaeologist” for my future career. This has been a dream of mine since early grade school and it all started with dinosaur oatmeal. As a kid, I would make my oatmeal but make a little “nest” for the dinosaur eggs by “excavating” them from the packet. Every packet had fun facts about dinosaurs and I thought I could be a paleontologist when I grew up, but I always called it archaeology as a little kid. Not until one of my morning packets of dinosaur oatmeal had the fun fact that a person who studies dinosaurs was called a “paleontologist”, not an “archaeologist”. So little me had to find out what in the world archaeology was if it wasn’t digging up dinosaurs.

 

Before I even knew what archaeology was, I loved history and I loved the dirt. Little me would go into my yard and collect fossils from around my house and in my woods and keep them in a box. I constantly saved toads and frogs and worms to get them to a safe place while doing my own busy work. Another early memory is sitting on my couch at home watching National Geographic episodes one after another after another. I clearly remember a documentary about King Tut and a separate episode about castles in Ireland. Everything interested me and I couldn’t get enough.

 

Archaeology had then been a passion of mine for years before I even discovered anthropology when I was in middle school. The study of humans and everything about them just broadened my horizon and strengthened my love of the subject. I was set on anthropology from then on, yet always had a soft spot for archaeology.

 

In college, studying abroad was a must in my academic career and I found the Akko program during my first semester. I went to meetings and actually had the strength to apply for the program during my second summer semester. I was afraid to spend so much money and I was uncertain about whether I was choosing the right thing for me. But I decided to go for it.  I never felt shocked that I was going on a place for the first time this summer, that I was leaving the country for the first time this summer, that I was going to be an archaeologist this summer. The plane ride came and went and I acclimatized to the new scenery without a problem. I didn’t experience jet lag as I just stayed up for the whole 10 and a half hour plane ride and went to bed at 11 pm, four hours after I arrived in Akko. And I didn’t experience this cultural shock. Nothing felt real. I was just in a different place and I got used to it rather quickly. There was no “this is so new”, “this isn’t right for me”, or even a “this is right for me”. I felt like I was just in a dream going with whatever flow was taking me.

 

So that’s how I ended up here in Akko and doing what I am passionate about for basically 24 hours a day. A perfect happy ending, right?

 

Yes, actually. I have become a part of Area Black, a newly opened area where I opened my very own square. Starting completely fresh and working to find something beneath the layers of dirt that have already been stripped away in other areas from seasons prior. Except, my square is nothing but dirt. NOTHING but dirt. Three separate squares surround mine, all riddled with amazing finds and even architecture but weeks into the dig and mine is over a meter deep into the ground with absolutely nothing to see. But every day I come back with positive energy and a simple love of what I am doing.

Beginning in week 3, I was moved to a different square in Area Black that has far more interesting material and every day I wish I was back in my home of NN-9. That’s how I know I’m on the right path. I have been doing the same thing over and over for weeks expecting something new, knowing my square is nothing but a disturbed pit of dirt, but that square is my home. My new placement is just an apartment I’m renting from a friend until I can get back on my feet again.

This profession is my home and Akko is now a part of it. Israel will forever be the place where I found exactly where I belong. I have since realized the realness of this experience and my heart breaks to return back home. I’m doing something that I never want to not be doing and soon my euphoria will shatter until I come back home again next year.

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By Anna Shamory

From Shards to Sherds: An Archaeologist’s First Dig

By Anna Shamory.


A ceramic bowl slips out of your hands and crashes to the ground. You pick up a piece of the broken pottery, but the real question is what you call this broken piece. Is it a shard or a sherd? Your answer to this question likely depends on your exposure to archaeology in literature or spoken word.

I study archaeological science at Penn State University, so before coming to Tel Akko I had some exposure to the term ‘sherd’. Yet, I have never personally used the alternative to shard until I came to dig at the tel. Whenever I saw the term sherd being used, I always questioned why archaeologists chose or came to prefer this more jargonized spelling.

So after days of uncovering countless sherds, placing them into buckets, carrying said sherds in buckets down to wash, and then hours of brushing them to varying degrees of cleanliness, I finally decided to investigate my question of:

Why sherds and not shards?

A definition of sherd, according to Merriam Webster’s online dictionary, is “a fragment of a pottery vessel found on sites and in refuse deposits where pottery-making peoples have lived.” However, shard is a more generic term for “a piece or fragment of a brittle substance.” In short, sherd (short for potsherd) goes specifically with historic/ancient pottery pieces, while shards can be anything literal or figurative that is broken into pieces.     

Even today, after weeks of saying sherd instead of shard, I sometimes do a double take when I see sherd written out somewhere, and I wonder how pottery ‘shreds’ something. My brain still thinks of a more typical word, shreds, over the archaeological variation that is sherds.

Since I’ve been converted to use the term sherd by the lingo here at the Tel Akko dig, I’ve learned so much more about pottery than I thought I ever would. Though I’m sure not all sites are chock full of sherds, the sheer amount of these broken pottery pieces uncovered and collected daily in the square in which I excavate is beyond any prior expectations I had about archaeology. My first day collecting pottery, I was extremely excited by every single piece I tossed into my pottery bucket. It was a thrilling experience to be touching literal pieces of history with my fingertips. Now, at the end of my third week here, I still very much enjoy finding pottery, but not every piece of pottery lends me that same excitement as before.

What do we do with the sherds?

In the late afternoons, we students and staff spend about two hours brushing clean all the pottery we collected the day(s) before. Us newbies quickly learned that washing a bucket full of the small pieces that lack any sort of identifiable ornamentation like a rim or design (and are around the size of  an American half-dollar) is time consuming and not as much fun to do.

Nonetheless, I very much enjoy digging up pottery sherds, and then spending a relaxing fun time with my friends talking, listening to music, and of course, scrubbing the dirt off numerous potsherds!

To end, no matter how many years I handle pottery in the field, I hope I can keep a little spark of that excitement I had those first few days. What looks like a typical sherd in the field can end up being a beautifully decorated piece when washed clean.

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.

1 2 3 4 6
Ally’s Declassified Archaeology Survival Guide
A Possible New Direction
Archaeology Vs. Paleontology or, Why We Don’t Find Dinosaur Bones on the Tel
4am Just Getting Started
Surveying the cult
The only find that matters
My Journey to Tel Akko
Barren Beauty
From Shards to Sherds: An Archaeologist’s First Dig
Digging with Chronic Pain