Aphek and the Importance of Location

The other day, we spent a bit of time at Tel Afek, the site of…Aphek, also called Antipatris.

Ottoman Fortress at Tel Afek

Biblically, we first see Aphek as one of the cities taken by the conquest and given to the tribe of Asher. By this time, it was already old, having been controlled by Egypt for quite some time. In I Samuel 4, the Philistines were encamped at Aphek when they routed Israel’s army and took the Ark of the Covenant as spoil. Despite the fact that that incident ended rather unpleasantly for them, they again set up base there to fight the Israelites–though, for some reason, the princes of the Philistines protested against David’s presence in their army.

Egyptian Palace at Tel Afek

History tells us that Herod would eventually receive Aphek as part of his kingdom, which he expanded, adding a Roman forum and cardo through the city. He renamed it Antipatris, after his father. It was thus to ancient Aphek that the chief Roman captain of the Antonia, Claudias Lysias, spirited Paul away when the Jews made their assassination plot against him (Acts 23).

The Roman Cardo at Tel Afek

But why was Aphek so hotly contested? From its foundation in the Chalcolithic Period (4500-3000 BC) to the Ottoman empire, it is clear why it was a popular piece of real estate. Located at the headwaters of the Yarkon River, Aphek sat on a strategic point where the coastal routes–including the Via Maris–were blocked by the Yarkon and its surrounding swampland, and funneled through a narrow pass towards Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley. Whoever controlled Aphek controlled the pass and any trade or armies moving through it.

Via Maris Funneled by Aphek
(A BIBARCH™ Photo courtesy of High Top Media™. Copyright ©1997 High Top Media™. All Rights Reserved.)

And, as a side note, the local donkey population at Tel Afek is also worth viewing. They are as curious about you as you are of them.

Citizen of the Local Donkey Population

Sea of Galilee Sunrise

Here is the sun rising over the Sea of Galilee this morning, about 3 hours ago.  It was a calm and peaceful scene, quite beautiful as well.  We’ve been traveling around the Galilee area for a day or two and are about to move into the Nazareth/Jezreel Valley area.

Sunrise over the Sea of Galilee

Jaffa: From Egyptian Basket Cases to Napoleon’s Backfired Plan

It’s difficult to throw a rock in Israel and not hit a site that is deeply steeped in history. Such is the city of Jaffa (Joppa), which dates back to the Neolithic Period around 7500 BC. Jaffa is first mentioned in an Egyptian tale now known as The Taking of Joppa from around 1440 BC. This letter describes how Thutmose III’s general, Djehuty infiltrated the city by hiding his soldiers in baskets and passing said baskets off as gifts to the governor. Jaffa again makes Egyptian headlines in the Amarna letters, written between 1388 and 1332 BC. Ramses II even had a fort here in the 13^th century.

Jaffa, with Andromeda’s Rock

Around the 13^th century, Israel appeared on the scene. Joshua 19:46 tells us that the tribe of Dan placed its borders against Japho. But, in the 12^th century, the Sea People (remember our friends the Philistines?) leave a great destruction layer in the city’s stratigraphy. It is around this time and place the Aegean myth arises of Perseus’ rescue of Andromeda from the clutches of the spiteful gods. Tradition has it that he swept her off her feet at the port of Jaffa. Later on, Huram, king of Tyre, would send Solomon cedars of Lebanon through the Jaffa port for the building of the temple. However, the port city never returned to Israelite control. The invading Assyrians placed Jaffa under the protection of Ashkelon, until it came under Phoenician control in the Persian Empire. During the Assyrian occupation, an opinionated prophet named Jonah took a notion to escape an omniscient God by using Jaffa as a jumping off point in a trip to Tarshish.

Downtown Jaffa

Jaffa spent the better part of the Hellenistic period in a tug of war between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid empire. After a bit of destruction by the Maccabees, it would find itself in the hands of Herod, then Cleopatra, then Herod again. By the New Testament period, things had settled down a bit. Peter was called to Joppa to return the faithful Tabitha to life. While he was there, in the house of Simon the tanner, Cornelius sent for him from Caesarea Maritima.

Market at Jaffa by Gustav Bauernfeind, 1887

Jaffa clung to history for years to come, surviving captures, recaptures, and destructions to prevent captures and recaptures (the Crusaders and Arabs tended towards that habit). Napoleon even took a crack at it 1799, until the bubonic plague ended that endeavor. It wasn’t until the 1950s that everyone got their act together and unified Jaffa and Tel Aviv into the Tel Aviv-Yafo that we know and love today.

Jaffa in the Evening

Project #2: Vagabonding in Israel for 40 Days (or So)

Picture of the Temple Mount from a south view. You may have to click to see the larger image, but from left to right you can see the Temple Mount, with the Old City walls below it, the Kidron Valley, and then the Mount of Olives (green clump of trees on the right). This shot was from June 14th, on a field trip/break day from the dig.

So you may remember from our first post from back in June, as we ramped up the blog again, we had a few “projects” coming up.  Digging in Ashkelon was #1, vagabonding in Israel for about a month is #2.

How did this project develop?  Project #1 is part of a larger endeavor, which will keep us here in Israel until December (more on that later, Project #3).  Project #2 is the in-between time of projects 1&3, about 40 days.

We faced the question of what to do with those 40 days.  Round-trip plane tickets home?  Sounds logical, but as we looked at that price, the question became, “Could we stay in-country for that or less, and visit the major sites in Israel relevant to the Biblical text?” This would be the ancient cities and tells (ancient mounds), not just popular tourist sites, although some of them are.  A little number crunching indicated that it would be close, assuming we used small hotels, hostels, and perhaps even a Bedouin tent :), and in general, lived life on the cheap.

While we dearly love our families, and desire greatly to see you all soon, you know the adventurous spirits we are. Project # 2 it is.

So, while the sun sets on the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon, the sun rises on explorative vagabonding in Israel.

Sunset on the ancient seaport beach of Ashkelon.

Hopefully, we will be able to keep you more up to date with Project #2, as our schedule will be a little more flexible and not quite so intense.

Archaeology Dig- a Day in the Life

Ok, so we have not posted as much as we would like over the course of this dig, and this post will help explain why.   This was also requested in a comment a few weeks ago (!).

4:30 a.m.- Wake up call

Yep, 4:30. Or 4:00, depending on how much you love sleep and how badly you want to be on time for the bus.

4:45 a.m.- First Breakfast

First breakfast is more like a morning snack.  This is what will give you the energy to get on the bus, arrive at the site, and begin making your way to the grid.  This will also carry you through the first 3.5 hours of digging.  Not sure how it is with other digs, but here in our hotel, this breakfast consists of bread and butter, honey or marmalade to spread on the bread, cookies or crackers, coffee, and tea.  We usually have to supplement with fruit and other healthy snacks. This is also when staff members will get their top plans reflecting the previous day’s work.

4:55 a.m. – Bus to site

The 5 am Bus

For our dig, the hotel is only about 1.5-2 miles from the actual dig site, so the ride is just a few minutes. Other folks have longer commutes.

Yes ladies, this is all of 30 minutes from the time you wake up until the time you have traveled to your site….not much time for hair 🙂

5:30 a.m. – Begin digging

While not an official scheduled time, by the time we have entered the “pottery compound” (explained later), retrieved all items needed to dig for the day, made the trek to our grid and set up shop, it’s about 5:30 and the digging commences.

So whether you are tracing floors, using a pick-axe to remove fill, conducting a two-handed trial scrape to expose mortar lines, or using a wheelbarrow to take dirt out of the grid, these first few hours are usually filled with lots of good ol’ fashion manual labor.

Trent brushing after tracing a shell floor.

9:00 a.m. – Second Breakfast

No sound as sweet as the breakfast call…

Given the name of this time period, we feel a little like hobbits (pun intended).  Anyway, since the 4:45 breakfast is not super substantial and you have worked 3 hard hours of manual labor (and it’s another four hours until lunch), you need breakfast again.  With this breakfast, you have your breads and spreads again, but throw in a few more items like cereals, yogurt, and a little protein (tuna and eggs–it’s not kosher to mix your meat and dairy).  Interestingly enough, tuna sandwiches on hoagie style rolls are a typical breakfast item here.  It may sound a little odd, but it’s really not that bad.

9:30 – Back to digging

Just before breakfast, did you hit with a patich and uncover the edge of a piece of pottery?  Did your soil color change with the scrape of your trowel to reveal a mortar joint that may be a newly discovered mud brick wall?  Did you strike down with your pick-axe and rattle your teeth on a large stone below the surface?  For any of these new discoveries, which could potentially unlock new secrets of the Byzantines, Persians, or the Philistines, you now have 3.5 more hours to unearth the big discovery.

11:00 a.m. – Fruit Break

TIme for a break, the breeze is nice!

With all of the heat and sun, you need a break once again.  So drink plenty of water and have an apple or pear.  Conveniently in Trent’s case, fruit break also come with a view of the Mediterranean.

1:00 p.m. Bus back to the hotel, and lunch!

Time for a shower and lunch.

After you have finished uncovering that newly discovered Philistine house, you are now hungry.  You also stink, so shower first and then lunch.

1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. – Siesta!

While 1-4 is “free” time, when you include lunch and other activities that are always popping up (like running to the Russian market for bandaids, catching up on journals, and school meetings), this three-hour period goes quickly every day.

4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Pottery compound

Pottery washing: Red buckets contain pottery from the grid and the black bucket is the clean washing water. The washed pottery is placed in cardboard fruit crates to dry.

Ever wonder what they do with all of the pottery found on an archaeological dig?  Yes, every piece is washed, classified, and stored away.  Ok, so maybe not truly every piece, but most found pieces are processed in some way.  This washing and sorting process is actually quite fun as you learn about pottery and how to identify different styles of it.

6:15 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. Lecture

As this dig includes several summer school programs, there are usually lectures just before dinner.  From a general introduction of our site, to information about other sites in the area, archaeology methods and techniques, the lectures are always packed with good information.

7:00 p.m. – 8 p.m. Dinner

Long day, need food.

8 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Catch up

Work on journals again, email family, perform any other administrative tasks, and hopefully try to go to bed as soon as possible. If you’re on staff, this this is time for writing up your notes, checking your top plans, and thinking about tomorrow’s work. You may have a late night.

That’s a day in the life of a dig participant.  It’s a full day from 4:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. of the workweek.

Throw in a weekend excursion or two, and that is the reason for so few blog posts during this dig!

You can read about one of those excursions on Luke Chandler’s blog.  We had a great time with him, almost two weekends ago now.  Check out his post here.

Archaeology 101

When we decided awhile back to go into the field of archaeology, we were on the receiving end of many questions. Number 1 was, “You’re going WHERE for six months?!” But there were other, more pertinant questions, such as “What exactly is archaeology?” and “What do you do at a dig?”

Archaeology is the study of the material remains of humanity (as opposed to paleontology). This is the study of artifacts. For a Biblical scholar, archaeology reveals the culture and practices behind the Bible narrative. Before your eyes, the Philistines transform from the wicked, Samson-hating enemies of Israel to a sophisticated and powerful people–who were also Israel’s enemies.

Examples of Philistine Pottery Sherds (Left to Right): Philistine Monochrome, Cypriot Milk Jar, Another Cypriot Milk Jar, Monochrome Bell Jar Rim and Handle

But how do we get to those awesome artifacts that prove the Philistines weren’t just a bunch of hair-chopping savages? First, one must find the right spot. In this case, we’re at Ashkelon, which has maintained its identity through the ages. Archaeologists will divide such a site into grids. Each grid is divided into squares, and these can be divided into units or fine grids for digging. Through the use of technology, such as ground penetrating radar (GPR), archaeologists can get a fairly good bead on where to start in terms of buried architecture. Then, the bulldozers and backhoes come in. Because that’s a lot easier than taking off the top layer ourselves.

Tools of the Trade (Back): Turia, Pickaxe, Brush and Dustpan, (Front) Trowel, Patich, Pottery Bucket

This is where we get to the fun part. Everyone gets a pickaxe. Some people are really great with pickaxes, some people aren’t, some people are a danger to humanity. At some point during the melee, somone is going to hit some pottery, or a rock, or a brick. Eventually a wall or even a whole complex will begin to emerge. As the work becomes more delicate, so do the tools. Now, you may be down next to a wall, and your supervisor will hand you a patich. This is your little pick that you use to chip away smaller chunks of dirt, rock, and sand. After a bit, you may be right against your wall, or you even found a piece of pottery or bone. So, you take out your handy-dandy trowel–the one you bought off Amazon and schlepped over land and sea just for this moment. With this, you will scrape, carve, and pick at thinner layers, and close in on artifacts. However, if you layer is important, such as floor or fiber (called phytolith), you may use a sophisticated tool like the bamboo skewer to gently lift and flake away dirt. If it’s really close work, they’ll bring out the dental pick instead. And when working with such fragile layers and objects, you can’t simply swipe over it with a brush. You will use an air puffer to puff away those pesky dust particles around your glorious find.

Using a Trowel to Scrape Down a Section (To Reveal Layers, Such as Floors)Using a Trowel to Explore the Edges of a Pit

Inevitably, though, amongst all this pickaxing, patiching, and trowling, you’ll make a mess. Or your surfaces will get lumpy. Cleanup and leveling is easy with the turia to scrape dirt into buckets and even up your surface. You’ll also use your brush and dustpan to clean up your area. Any pottery goes into a bucket labeled for your particular spot, and bones go into a labeled bag. Really special stuff will be individually packaged and labeled for research.

A Clean Area Is a Happy Area–Tools at Ready and Dirt Buckets in Use

Once everything is labeled, dusted, and tidy, the last tool in an archaeologist’s repetoir is the hot shower. You’ve played with ancient humanity all day, and now it’s time to join your own modern culture again. Happy digging!