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I Volunteered for This?! Life on an Archaeological Dig

’97 Dig Opportunities
BAR Dig Scholarships
Rocks, Rocks and More Rocks

By Carol Lowry

Carol Lowry

When I learned I was a scholarship winner, I was thrilled. Then fear set in. Being 52, from Minnesota and having a desk
job, I imagined myself laid low by heatstroke, sunburn and backache, surrounded by scornful, muscle-bound students
and nasty bugs.
My fears were groundless. Dig volunteers ranged in age from 15 to mid-70s, and there was something for everybody. While younger volunteers hauled boulders and buckets of dirt up ladders from the Iron Age level, 8 feet down,
most of us older folk concentrated on the Hellenistic and early Roman remains, only 3 feet down. The work was no more
strenuous than gardening, and I was delighted to be working on the remains from the city that the apostles Peter, Andrew
and Philip called home.
I also worked in a small pit along the outside of the Iron Age city wall, trying to measure how far down it went. We
had to make our way through rubble bulldozed off the top of the tell when it was a Syrian military position. One man
loosened boulders with a pickax while the rest of us took turns getting in the pit to sift the dirt and to roll boulders out
of the way. Shortly before the last hour of the last day we exposed pavement at the bottom of the wall and found two
almost-complete storage jars.
© 2006 Biblical Archaeology Society

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