Samford Summer in Israel

Dear Family and Friends, Today is our second full day of three in Jerusalem.   We arrived Friday evening—the beginning of Shabbat—as we usually do and ensconced ourselves in rooms at St. George’s Cathedral guesthouse.   We had a few minutes to take in the attractive dining room and bar with the lovely garden, then we hiked down Nablus road and through the Damascus Gate until we reached the Western Wall.   Up to this point the experience has been full of novelties and adventure for our first-timers, but Jerusalem multiplies the exotic encounters.   On these hikes I wear my big white hat (a gift from David Johnson at Samford) so that those at the back can keep sight of me, and I give a brief lesson on how to move through a crowd like a Middle Easterner.   But the sights, sounds, and scents allure, and the group slows like rubberneckers on a highway.   Well I can’t blame them.   They are seeing architecture that dates from t...

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...

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...

Dear Family and Friends, It is late in the morning on Sunday June 3.   I did not write last Sunday because by then I had only been in the country two days.   About 11 of us arrived Friday May 25 and 22 more the 26 th .   When all is said and done, we will be about 47 strong.   Students from Samford University, University of South Florida, Randolph-Macon College, Southeastern University, and the University of Lausanne make up our youngest stratum, and our volunteers come from Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kentucky, Illinois, Nebraska, Texas, Missouri, Utah, Israel, and Switzerland.   I may have left out some spots. The relatively cool temperatures and clouds have felt like a blessing.   We have even endured the threat of rain, yet rain did not prevent the archaeology from happening, despite some students’ hopes.   Speaking of archaeology, it has gone well so far...