Monday-6th Day of Dig.

So from all of my blogs thus far it sounds like we are just out having a good ole time, roaming Israel. And that is correct...but only on Saturday and Sunday. On Monday thru Friday we HIT IT HARD!!!! I have never sweated this much in my whole life...no joke. I have also never drank this much water in my whole life...probably 1.5 liters before noon and another liter before bedtime. Adam has never pushed so many wheelbarrows full of dirt, and now his arms hang down to his feet....they have been stretched :).
I want to also address the fact that you may be wondering why we aren't saying anything like "wow, we found a _______ today". We can't talk about certain things that we are finding for three reasons.
1-Dr. Ortiz would like to write about it before anyone else does.
2-We are making more discoveries everyday and if we publicized it every day we would have looters coming to the Tel at night.
3- We would also have more and more tourists up on the Tel with us and they would slow down our work ( we already have a group come through about every other day that want to see what is going on).
SO, with that said let me assure that you everyday we hear a loud shrill of excitement as someone finds a Material Culture ( a.k.a- a really neat thing) in the dirt. We are also connecting buildings to one another and Dr. Ortiz has said " this season we are finally finding everything we have been looking for over the past three seasons". To sum up-WE ARE ACTUALLY DOING ARCHEAOLOGY!!
If you want to find out what we find ask us when we get back to the states and we will gladly tell you...as long as you dont publish it on the internet either :).

Monday
We have a big group of tourist goes through and they want to know what is going on. Adam's team has taken down two more baulks (I'll post a picture of a top plan so you can see what a baulk is) but for now, let me explain. We work in a 5 by 5 meter square. However, we came in .5 meters all around so that we only dig in a 4 by 4 meter square leaving a .5 meter of dirt on all sides so that we can look at the stratigraphy. Therefore, to take down a baulk either means that you want to see if two squares connect, if architecture is repeated in the baulk and to start a new layer ( like from Hellenistic to Iron Age). My square has opened up two more squares after a discovery in hopes of a continuation of fortification.
My co-supervisor, Paul, is becoming one of my favorite people on the trip. He is a retired history teacher/football coach from Michigan. He coached Alex Rodriguez who is now a famous baseball player...you may have heard of him recently from dating Madonna. Anyways, every afternoon I leave my gloves on the Tel so that I wont forget them the next day. So in the mornings, Paul gladly tries them on for me so that if there is a scorpion inside it bites him first. HAHA....what a great guy!! Yes, there are scorpions here in Israel ...Adam has seen four or five. Black and yellow ones...and our director Sam Wolff has been stung by one on a dig.
My other supervisor Dan is teaching me how to draw the top plans for our squares. There are all kinds of measurements you have to take and different ink color for different features....it kinda look like an architectural draft. I love it so far ...its probably as close to art as I will get right now.
The best part of my day though was getting a letter from Jerri-my mentee back in Johnson City!!!! She only wrote a couple of lines but I am thrilled that she thought of me!!
Tonight we have pottery washing and a lecture by Aren Maeir who teaches here at Bar-Ilan University. He is speaking on "Whats new at Gath of the Philistines-Fresh Results from Excavation". I am taking notes at almost every lecture and will put up some of the more interesting ones later ( Adam probably thinks they are all interesting :)

Ill add pictures from the whole week on Friday's blog!!!