More Dorotness
Sep. 5th, 2006 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theyellowhobbitOne of the requirements of my grant was to send a letter to the Dorot Foundation of RI (and CC the Penn NELC people) describing my experiences at tel Dor (oddly enough they were giving me the grant for just Dor and not Safi, which didn't change the amount of money, but it does mean I only need to provide information about that program).
This is what I just wrote. (The footnotes in the actual letter are actual numbers and not asterisks, correctly embedded in the text...)
Dorot Foundation of Rhode Island
439 Benefit Street
Providence, RI 02903
Dear Sirs and Madams,
I’d like to first of all thank you for the generous grant. It helped immensely in my travel to Israel this summer.
I spent the first two weeks of my trip at the tel* Dor archaeological excavation. It was an amazing experience. We woke up at 4:00am every morning, and by 4:45 marched out to the tel. We would all line up by the tool container and pass out all the tools we needed for the day (we called it “chaining out” the tools).We worked from then until 1, with 3 breaks throughout the morning for food. Then at the end of the day we chained the tools back in and were done digging for the day. In the afternoon, we had two hours of pottery washing, and then a lecture at night.
The first day of the excavation was spent weeding. Since tel Dor is on the coast, there is a lot of vegetation that grows every year in between excavations. It was a long, grueling process, but the breaks throughout the day made it easier.
The rest of the time we actually excavated. We put up shade tents over most of the areas so that we wouldn’t have to work in the hot sun. Even then, it was still incredibly hot.
A lot of the work was done with hoes (called “turiyas”), pickaxes, handpicks (called “patiches”) and trowels. The turyias and pick-axes were used to clear large areas of land, where we knew we had dirt from mixed contexts** that wasn’t archaeologically useful. Once we got to the good contexts we started using the smaller tools to dig. We’d keep decorated and diagnostic sherds*** of pottery, as well as animal bones, mosaic tiles, and anything special. The mosaics came from a Hellenistic layer****, and they actually have a large portion of it on display at the museum on the kibbutz. On my very last day there I found a colored piece of it. It was called a “special find” and got its very own basket number*****, box, and elevation******.
My square supervisors were named Rebecca and Ryan, both graduate students at UCal Berkeley. They were both great to work under. Rebecca really knew a lot about pottery and excavating in general. Ryan was also pretty helpful. In addition, Liz Bloch-Smith, a professor at Villanova University and St. Joseph's University, was there, directing her own area. I got to talk to her about different graduate programs in the US and Israel for archaeology, and what it was like being an archaeologist.
What I ended up learning on the dig was proper excavation technique (how to use all the different tools, where and where not to excavate), how to take an elevation, how to make a basket list and top plan, and the value of teamwork. In addition I developed the ability to be able to wake up early in the morning without setting an alarm, I got a lot more physically fit, and by the end of the summer I had a great tan.
I gained a greater appreciation for archaeology this summer, and digging made me pretty certain that I want to do this for a living. I’m planning on going to graduate school in archaeology next year, in order to continue my studies.
Sincerely,
Rachel Adler
Footnotes:
*A tel is an archaeological term for a site that has many layers, made from people living in the same place over a long period of time, rebuilding on top of the ruins of previous inhabitants.
**“Context” here meaning the area immediately surrounding an artifact or feature. You use the context to help date when an artifact/feature came from, how it was used, etc. Without context, most artifacts are archaeologically meaningless.
***Diagnostic sherds being those that can help with reconstruction, figuring out how the object was shaped. Usually these are rims or bases.
****Inaccurately named the “Persian Palace,” though it was neither Persian nor a palace.
*****We keep track of every artifact we remove from the site by giving it a basket number. Pottery sherds found in a single locus (archaeological area) will all be put in the same basket. The same goes for bones.
******Elevations are taken at the end of the day so we know how far we have dug, but we also take elevations for every basket.
What do you think. Should I make any changes before sending it?
This is what I just wrote. (The footnotes in the actual letter are actual numbers and not asterisks, correctly embedded in the text...)
Dorot Foundation of Rhode Island
439 Benefit Street
Providence, RI 02903
Dear Sirs and Madams,
I’d like to first of all thank you for the generous grant. It helped immensely in my travel to Israel this summer.
I spent the first two weeks of my trip at the tel* Dor archaeological excavation. It was an amazing experience. We woke up at 4:00am every morning, and by 4:45 marched out to the tel. We would all line up by the tool container and pass out all the tools we needed for the day (we called it “chaining out” the tools).We worked from then until 1, with 3 breaks throughout the morning for food. Then at the end of the day we chained the tools back in and were done digging for the day. In the afternoon, we had two hours of pottery washing, and then a lecture at night.
The first day of the excavation was spent weeding. Since tel Dor is on the coast, there is a lot of vegetation that grows every year in between excavations. It was a long, grueling process, but the breaks throughout the day made it easier.
The rest of the time we actually excavated. We put up shade tents over most of the areas so that we wouldn’t have to work in the hot sun. Even then, it was still incredibly hot.
A lot of the work was done with hoes (called “turiyas”), pickaxes, handpicks (called “patiches”) and trowels. The turyias and pick-axes were used to clear large areas of land, where we knew we had dirt from mixed contexts** that wasn’t archaeologically useful. Once we got to the good contexts we started using the smaller tools to dig. We’d keep decorated and diagnostic sherds*** of pottery, as well as animal bones, mosaic tiles, and anything special. The mosaics came from a Hellenistic layer****, and they actually have a large portion of it on display at the museum on the kibbutz. On my very last day there I found a colored piece of it. It was called a “special find” and got its very own basket number*****, box, and elevation******.
My square supervisors were named Rebecca and Ryan, both graduate students at UCal Berkeley. They were both great to work under. Rebecca really knew a lot about pottery and excavating in general. Ryan was also pretty helpful. In addition, Liz Bloch-Smith, a professor at Villanova University and St. Joseph's University, was there, directing her own area. I got to talk to her about different graduate programs in the US and Israel for archaeology, and what it was like being an archaeologist.
What I ended up learning on the dig was proper excavation technique (how to use all the different tools, where and where not to excavate), how to take an elevation, how to make a basket list and top plan, and the value of teamwork. In addition I developed the ability to be able to wake up early in the morning without setting an alarm, I got a lot more physically fit, and by the end of the summer I had a great tan.
I gained a greater appreciation for archaeology this summer, and digging made me pretty certain that I want to do this for a living. I’m planning on going to graduate school in archaeology next year, in order to continue my studies.
Sincerely,
Rachel Adler
Footnotes:
*A tel is an archaeological term for a site that has many layers, made from people living in the same place over a long period of time, rebuilding on top of the ruins of previous inhabitants.
**“Context” here meaning the area immediately surrounding an artifact or feature. You use the context to help date when an artifact/feature came from, how it was used, etc. Without context, most artifacts are archaeologically meaningless.
***Diagnostic sherds being those that can help with reconstruction, figuring out how the object was shaped. Usually these are rims or bases.
****Inaccurately named the “Persian Palace,” though it was neither Persian nor a palace.
*****We keep track of every artifact we remove from the site by giving it a basket number. Pottery sherds found in a single locus (archaeological area) will all be put in the same basket. The same goes for bones.
******Elevations are taken at the end of the day so we know how far we have dug, but we also take elevations for every basket.
What do you think. Should I make any changes before sending it?
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Date: 2006-09-05 03:51 pm (UTC)