Back in the Field!

Phwew.  The last few days have been quite a whirlwind.  We had a semi-productive half-day in the field on Saturday, and spent the afternoon reading pottery and working on cataloguing.  No surprises from our reading—most of our pottery buckets came back as mixed and not datable.  What was datable was early Islamic or late Byzantine.  No mysteries solved from M11, but we were expecting such an outcome from our square because of the evidence of later disturbance we found as we dug.

Sunday, our off day, was very interesting.  We traveled south to Huqoq, Prof. Jodi Magness’s new site.  She is a big deal in the archaeological world and it was great to meet her and see her excavations.  She had just started the week before our visit and it would be nice to return in a few years to see what the place looks like after a couple of seasons. 

Later that evening, disaster struck.  Almost the entire excavating team came down with a horrible 24-hr bug.  The night passed miserably for most of us, and yesterday we spent still sick and recovering.  However, today we were back in the field and morale is high!  Linsday found a great glass shard—it is a bottle base, and Jodi Magness and her team returned the favor of our visit.  Now, some Tel Hai students are coming to the Kibbutz for dinner and discussion.  We are all very tired, but hopefully the meeting goes well.