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I Volunteered for This?! Life on an Archaeological Dig

1993 Excavation Opportunities Telling It Like It Is

By Wayne T. Butler

Staff member Bob Mullins uses a theodolite
to survey the site.

One morning in February, about nine o’clock, I was having breakfast. On my left Ulf and Helena were speaking German;
on my far right Ami, Aaron and Tami were discussing the day’s work in Hebrew; in front of me Amanda from South Africa
was listening to Michael’s Australian version of English; and at my right elbow Seong Kim was muttering in Korean as he
tried to open a can of fish with my Swiss Army knife. This was not the breakfast to which I was accustomed at my boat
shop in Marblehead, Massachusetts. I was now at a tell in Beth-Shean, Israel, working as a volunteer excavating a Late
Bronze Age Canaanite temple.
My adventure started about a year before when I saw a listing of digs and volunteer opportunities for the coming
season in BAR. The first listing was for Beth-Shean and was already in progress. However it also mentioned they would
be digging again in the fall and winter. This got my attention for several reasons. First, history has always been one of
my interests, and I had often wished I could work on a dig. Second, winter is the slack season in my shop, and I could
spare the time. And third, I had been to Beth-Shean before when my wife, Susie, and I joined a ten-day bus tour of
Israel and Egypt. One short stop included the Roman theater below the tell.
I wrote to Professor Amihai Mazar, director of the excavations, and after an exchange of letters during the summer
and fall I learned the dig dates had been set for January 21 through March 1. This was great—now instead of just two
weeks in January, as I had expected, I would stay for the whole six weeks and experience the start and finish of the year’s
work on the site.
An additional attraction was the accommodations. We were to stay at Kibbutz Kfar Ruppin. The kibbutz is in the
Jordan Valley on the Jordan River (the border between Israel and Jordan).
© 2006 Biblical Archaeology Society

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