I Volunteered for This?! Life on an Archaeological Dig
Near Eastern history, numismatics, and pottery techniques were subjects of the four-week lecture series, our ignorance
could not be eliminated so easily.
“Nothing hangs together on the site,” was a complaint common to almost all the first year volunteers. Archaeology
moves slowly and many of the discoveries are made not at the dig but later in a laboratory or over a typewriter. Not privy
to those advances we volunteer fieldworkers endured the disappointment of incomplete conclusions and identifications.
Though we were limited in knowledge we were willing and able to let our imaginations run wild. Unearthing fragments of a civilization that had been buried for thousands of years and then reconstructing its way of life is like putting
together a jigsaw puzzle.
People were inadvertently nodding off while listening to the lecturer’s sonorous voice. At 9:00 p.m. the lights went
out. 4:30 comes early.
I lay on my cot, listening to the soft murmur of voices outside, and tried to piece together the significance of the
Tel Michal experience. “It’s finding roots,” I thought sleepily—finding the remains of a succession of peoples who had
been part of an area’s history and part of the larger family of man.
But more importantly, Tel Michal was a touchstone for all of us, progeny of those born in the Fertile Crescent. How
would we be seen 2000 years from now? What have we learned from our past? Would others learn from us? A plane
droned overhead, and then only the quiet of the night touched my thoughts.
I had a suspicion, as I drifted off, that the full impact of the experience at Mi