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This is Dina, our restorer, she has been part of our team since 1999, before she worked with other major projects such as that of Tel Miqne/Ekron. Besides working as a restorator, she received a BA in Archaeology from Hebrew University and has worked as a staff member in excavations in the Jewish quarter in Jerusalem. Below she describes just what it is she does in the lab;
“Yes!” you think, “I found another piece…” One sherd which fits together with another sherd and this is how the puzzle is slowly put together. Piles of sherds placed on a table gradually revealing their original forms, sometimes a chalice or Safi bowl.
The newest issues of BAR (March/April 2006) arrived today in the mail. They have gone thru a bit of a change in the style (a little similar to the National Geographic cover …). There are several interesting articles, and, as I mentioned previously, the news item about the “Goliath inscription.” Besides my comments that I already wrote, just one more thing – the title says that the inscription is proof of the assimilation of the Philistines. Au contraire! It shows that they did not assimilate! Rather, they were in a process of “acculturation,” or as I prefer, “creolization,” in which they were effected and influenced by the surrounding cultures, but still retained significant aspects of their own unique culture (in this case, the Indo-European names). With time, this transformation continued and gradually developed.
On another issue – I know the identity of the mysterious scholars who would not identify themselves regarding the temple model …….
Aren
Today, we had a visit to the lab by the project’s zooarchaeologists. Liora Horwitz (Hebrew University) and Justin Lev-Tov (adjunct researcher, University of Mainz). Justin, Liora, and myself (Aren) have recently been awarded a research grant from the National Geographic Society to study the food patterns of the Philistines, based on the zooarchaeological evidence from our excavations (and comparing to the finds from other Philistine and non-Philistine sites). This grant has enabled Justin to travel to Israel. He will be here for the next several weeks, and once again in the summer for the entire season. This offers Liora and Justin an opportunity to jointly work on the animal bones from the excavations.
Justin, Aren and Liora reviewing the stratigraphy of the site
I was in touch with K. Krist Hirst, the archaeology guide for about.com, about our blog. She also believes that this is the first blog of an archaeological project, even though there are already various blogs by archaeologists out in cyber-space (see her short summary of various archaeological blogs). See the short note on our blog on the about.com site, and she has said that she will write a longer piece on this in the near future.
BTW – in general, her site is an excellent resource on a wide range of archaeological related issues. Definitely worth browsing thru!
Aren
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