The Earth-sifters of Tel Bet Shemesh

The Earth-sifters of Tel Bet Shemesh

The newest addition to my bedroom wall is a framed enlargement of a summer solstice sunrise. It's not the only photo on my walls, but this one is different.

In that photo, light from a nearly-visible sun looms up from behind a cluster of tents and human silhouettes that could easily date back to the Early Iron Age. In fact, those silhouettes belong to twenty-first century, Early Silicon Age students in search of thirteen hundred year old artifacts atop an ancient, artificial mountain that was created over centuries as successive cultures built upon the ruins of previous civilizations. For me, as for the other students and professors who worked this summer at the archaeological excavation at Tel Bet Shemesh, this photo conjures up memories of earth-sifters and wheelbarrows, rhythmically chinking pickaxes on stone, and excavation grit grinding between our teeth. Zvi and Shlomo, our fearless Israeli directors, would excitedly exhort us to sweep, scrape, and sift with near-reckless abandon, on only one condition: we could never, unde...

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...cial conflict. Because of the government's involvement with archaeological exploration and archaeology's dependence on international volunteers at Israeli excavation sites, not even remote digs were spared the political posturing that characterizes Middle Eastern life.

I highly recommend this experience to students who have a passion for cultural or political history, who are willing to work long hours, and who can live in a close community with other volunteers. Enthusiasm more than makes up for a lack of previous archaeological experience.