Test Test2 | Page 24

I Volunteered for This?! Life on an Archaeological Dig
These observations stem, in part, from a personal
encounter with archaeological voluntarism last summer. I
was one of some 250 men and women from more than a
dozen countries who participated in the City of David dig in
Jerusalem, directed by Dr. Yigal Shiloh.
From the viewpoint of the volunteer, this was clearly a
“fun” dig. Hard work, sure, but potsherds aplenty. It was a
site spiced with Astarte figurines, corroded copper rings,
even enticing inscriptions every few days. And since there
was no on-site “camp,” we volunteers could even commute
to the comfort of luxurious accommodations and savor
Jerusalem’s gentle night life.
Still, as I carted bucket after bucket of yellow clay from
one part of the dusty hill to another, a number of questions
kept coming to mind. Is this really fun? Or have I simply
been swept up by the aura of “playing scientist”? Since I
don’t aspire to be a professional archaeologist, what am I
really looking for? Am I searching for new insight into the
past, or am I hoping to unearth something new about myself?

Ellsworth Rosen
This large stone (17 ˘ 19 inches) is probably an ancient toilet.
Discovered in 1980, it was embedded in, but somewhat raised
above, the plaster floor of a 7th-6th century B.C. Israelite house
in the City of David. Beneath the wide hole in the center was a
pit more then six feet deep. Similar structures, assumed to be
toilets, are known from other sites in the ancient Near East and
Egypt.

It took a number of months for some of the answers to
gestate into maturity. Not surprisingly, the verdict was positive—but not quite in the way I had originally expected. In
the first burst of enthusiasm, I regaled willing—and sometimes unwilling— listeners with my new-found knowledge about civilization’s fragments tumbled layer upon layer near
the Gihon spring. The Jebusite period, the Israelite period, the Hellenistic period sorted themselves out into measured
time segments—give or take a few hundred years.

But now that the memory of complaining muscles has dimmed, two effects that remain go beyond specific dating
or accurate pottery identification: one relates to a deeper understanding of the spirit of the Bible; the other is a personal
sense of rejuvenation and enlargement that refuses to fade away.
The more general reaction is easier to understand. You cannot tread the hills of Jerusalem without feeling the presence of Biblical personalities. Every volunteer on the Ophel, the “spur” on which the City of David is located, knew that
Solomon was anointed there at the pulsating Gihon spring (whose very name means “gushing” in Hebrew). David’s soldiers may have come up the precise shaft we were struggling to expose (2 Samuel 5:6–9). Hezekiah’s determination and
will to survive permeated the entire length of the 1,750-foot-long tunnel he had ordered chiseled out of the bedrock
limestone (2 Chronicles 32:2–4). Perhaps Isaiah, the prophet of the poor and the humble, the thundering voice of justice, had scrambled, as we had, up and down these same sharply-angled steps.
A combination of people and events shaped the history of this area. But it was the other way around as well. Did
not these hills mold the thoughts and consciousness of these same people? To what extent could the understanding of
the terrain add to an appreciation of the spirit of Judaism—and by extension, Christianity and Mohammedanism as well?
“I am David,” I say to myself, carrying my hundredth stone of the day to the nearby dump. “I am a worker living
in this four-room house I am excavating. I walked these hills before. I trudged these paths.” It may be significant that
the staircase is only wide enough for two people. The prophets, the kings, and the priests had to walk shoulder to shoulder with their fellow Israelites. They had little choice but to walk humbly with their neighbors, just as they were enjoined
to “walk humbly with their God.”
At the same time, at every resting spot, the hills of Jerusalem must have beckoned as they still do now. On every
horizon there was a vista worthy of those who would “lift up their eyes.”
There are flaws in such a formulation. The Canaanites lived on the same spot and could not devise a Torah. There
were other hilltowns in civilizations throughout the world where the hostile terrain proved a hindrance to development,
not a spur. But here it had worked. The spirit of Abraham, enriched by Moses and David and Solomon, took root and
flourished in the rocky soil of Jerusalem. Paradoxically the Bible, for some of us at least, became both a more human
and a more miraculous achievement.
My personal transformation was more subtle. It is difficult to admit publicly that some of us who rebelled at being
categorized as “over 55” did in fact have inner doubts about the physical demands of excavating. Our macho self-image

© 2006 Biblical Archaeology Society

19