I Volunteered for This?! Life on an Archaeological Dig
usually left enclosing a square as it’s being worked on). I learned to recognize the remains of mudbricks, plaster and roofing material, and began to detect differences in the stones from the walls and those from the surrounding rubble. All
around I saw a layer of ash and clinkers, the bubbly black stones formed when the Assyrians destroyed the city in 732
B.C.E. with fires so hot they melted stone and brick. I had researched the Assyrian conquests for a church play I wrote:
Now I was seeing the results firsthand. I could imagine the panic of the city defenders who long ago faced the choice o