Monday, June 28th | Tel Hazor 1993

9:17 pm
At 3:50 this morning – knock, knock, “Boker tov.” That meant that it was time to get up. Yay, our first day at the Tel. After getting dressed and ready to go, we went to the dining hall and had a light breakfast – milk, bread, and spread.

The bus to the Tel left about 4:40. Normally it is supposed to leave at 4:30. The ride to the Tel is about 20-30 minutes. Once we were there, we were divided into areas. My area is A-3. Today we were just cleaning. I was working mostly with a lady from Brooklyn (Laurie Sackler) and a Hebrew University student from Japan (Nozomo Tanabe).

We had a coffee break at 10 til 7:00, and I got to serve coffee because my square is so close to the food tent. The coffee is totally different from any I've ever had, but it's okay.

The thing I was mostly cleaning in the morning was supposed to be a silo. We found quite a few pieces of broken pottery.

The silo I was cleaning in on that first day; photo taken some time later.

At 9:00 was the big breakfast – boiled eggs, vegetables, bread. We got 45 minutes for breakfast. After eating we got a chance to see the entrance to the water tunnel. It is really huge, and I hope to go down it sometime.

After breakfast I helped clean other parts of Area A-3. We worked until 1:00 and went back to Safed and had lunch. After lunch I learned how to wash pottery. I finally got a chance to take a shower. I got in the shower with my clothes on to wash them a little.

After my shower I went into Safed with David Morker, Walter Perez, Julie Hales, Julie Egedus, and Caroline Sag. Safed is an interesting town with quite a few shops on the street. There is really a great view of mountains from within the town. I bought some Goldstar beer while in town, but it isn't as good as Maccabee. Julie Hales, Caroline Sag, and I got back about 5:30.

Part of the view from where we stayed at Gesher House. [Click to view larger.]

I ended up laying down and falling asleep until almost dinner time. Again, dinner was at 7:00. At 8:00 Amnon Ben-Tor, the dig director, gave a small lecture on Hazor. Matt tried taping it, but only the slides turned out well. After the lecture it's bed time.

Sunday, June 27th | Tel Hazor 1993

8:48 pm
We had a 6:30 wake-up call this morning. We had to be packed up by 8:00 so we could set our luggage outside to be taken downstairs. We thought they would take it to our bus, but they only took it to the lobby.

I bought 10 postcard stamps and sent the free postcard from the room to my parents.

We got on our way a little after 9:00. Dr. Germano had rented a car earlier in the morning, so he followed the bus. The first place we stopped was Jaffa. I got to see the Mediterranean Sea good for the first time.

View of Tel Aviv from Jaffa

Along our walk in Jaffa

Our next stop was Caeserea Maritima. Again, it is on the Mediterranean. The major thing there is an amphitheater. When we were getting back on the bus, I found a 20 Shekel bill in the sand (worth about $8 US at the time).

Most of the historical sites have signs like this one. I photographed many of them throughout the trip.

Some of the view at Caesarea.

Some ruins at Caesarea.

We were going to stop at Dor and Mt. Carmel, but we were running out of time, so we stopped in Haifa for lunch and continued on to Safed. On the way we saw many mountains and beautiful landscape. Sarah Campbell and I decided that we will probably try to go climb a mountain next Sunday, July 4th, since it is our only free day to ourselves.

We got to Safed and the Gesher House in the late afternoon. I am staying in the Villa (room 30) with Mark Schaffer, David Morker, and Walter Perez. Dinner was at 7:00. We had a meeting at 8:00. Our wake-up call is around 4:00 in the morning for our first day on the Tel.


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Sorry for such a delay in posting and updating this. I'm hoping to keep up and hopefully have it finished before the 20th anniversary of our return back to the United States later this summer. The biggest effort is in typing up my handwritten journal.