At Banias with Associate Director Dr. David Finsy

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Second Post 2013

Dear Family and Friends, I missed writing last week because the weekend was completely filled with obligations, some welcome and others just plain tiring.   Friday was our first kiddish celebration: a welcoming of the end of the work week and the beginning of Sabbath rest with a little service that entails blessings in Hebrew over candles, “fruit of the vine,” and bread, some readings from the Bible and a book of prayers (the readings are our own idiosyncratic additions), a singing of Psalm 133:1 (“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters live together in unity.”), and then a round of hugs accompanied with the blessing, “Shabbat Shalom” or “Sabbath peace.”   Dinner follows.   Last Saturday we took our first weekend trip to Sepphoris and Capernaum and ending with a dip in the Sea of Galilee.   It was blazing hot.   This was the first year we’ve gone to a pay beach, which means we had access to a clean area under trees with chairs, a ...
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Third Letter from Nazareth Dear Family and Friends, Last week’s letter is my Father’s Day post.   I’m writing on Saturday because of a change in plans.   Today the high temperature will be 101 ° F/38 ° C in Nazareth where I am and 109 ° F/43 ° C at Kinneret College where I had planned to be.   No.   So tomorrow when it will be merely 85/29 up here and 96/36 down there, I and a few others will travel to our shipping container to organize artifacts and collect some for study.   Along with trimming balk, taking line level elevations, and pottery reading, no one makes movies about this aspect of archaeology.   We will have to reward ourselves with gelato afterwards.   Today, therefore, I write. Speaking of archaeology, the biggest surprise this year has been the Late Bronze age (1500–1200 BCE) pottery that has begun to turn up in the eastern squares of our Field I.   We only have about four or five sherds s...
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Second Letter from Nazareth Dear Family and Friends, I am writing later than usual this Sunday because of morning chores.   More about that momentarily. Last week I mentioned that I met Dad everywhere.   That is still the case, and I don’t imagine it will end.   I cannot ask him all of the questions I have about his experiences digging in the 1970s and 80s, why he dated certain pottery forms the way he did, or any of the other things only he could tell me.   Their number must be countless because I’m not running out.   I ask and not hearing his answer reminds me to grieve.   Did you ever hear him speak?   Maybe you know what I’m talking about.   At Kiddish last Friday Mom told me, “I miss his voice.” Morning chores began when Tom McCollough and I met Motti Aviam at an archaeological site north of the eastern end of the Beit Netofa Valley, near the ancient divide between “Lower” and “Upper” Galilees.   Th...
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