My Pilgrimage: June 12

Since today was our first day of digging, they let us off easy.  We didn’t have to show up until 8:00, at which point we were given an introduction to the site, archeology, and what we are looking for.  We were then each given a spot and an assignment.  Mine was to “clean up” a wall area, and when I was done with that to level off a certain area.  What’s funny is that, driving to the site, I was talking about my aspirations when I was younger to be an archeologist or a paleontologist.  Shortly into the work, I was bemoaning how much the movies lied to us.

Truthfully, it’s uncomfortable (how many different ways do I have to contort my body?), hot, monotonous work.  At the beginning, I was being very careful with my pick, trying not to break any potential important find.  Within an hour I was hacking away.  What is there to find?  Dirt.  Mud.  Rocks.  Tiny parts of pottery that are not valuable (discard anything less than the size of two thumbs).  Once you fill up your bucket with dirt, throw it through the sifter, grab some water, and repeat. 

Maybe I’m just bitter because the best thing I found was a piece of pottery the size of my palm.  I thought I had something when I unearthed a substantial piece of wood (1^st century wood!  Maybe part of a boat!), but was immediately dashed when I was told it was merely “biological,” i.e. nothing.  Others in my group were finding pottery handles.  One did find a coin, which is about as great as it’s going to get (it’s corroded to the point you can’t tell what it is, but it was a coin at one point). 

We had a “breakfast” break at 10:00, back to the dig around 10:45, Mass at 12:45, lunch at 1:30, and then we were done for the day.  Again, they took it light on us the first day.  It’s too hot to dig in the afternoon, so on other days we will do “pottery reading,” which simply means another mind numbing job of washing pottery.  But today we simply went back to the hotel, showered, and presumably most took naps or at least rested.  Even that little bit of manual labor we were not used to.  For some of us, we go back to class tonight after dinner, continuing to go over the Gospel of Matthew.  Tomorrow, we have a more “normal” day, which means we have to leave the hotel by 5:30.