Digging in the Middle East

I first began digging in the Middle East in Israel, in 1988. I had completed my first year of a PhD program at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in North-east England, in their archaeology program, and my Tutor had recommended that I 'go dig something out of my comfort zone'. Before then I had been on several Roman period digs, and my PhD topic was on things Roman, and so I chose, applied for, and was accepted on a Chalcolithic period dig in southern Israel, led by Tom Levy of Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem.

The plan was for everyone to meet in Jerusalem, and then take a bus from HUC to the site. However, I arrived late, and made my way to the closest place to the dig, the city of Be'er Sheva. The only clue I had as to the location of the dig was in a 'Figure' in one of Tom's publications, showing the Chalcolithic sites in the area, one of which was Be'er Sheva. I checked into a hostel, and began asking for directions to 'Shiqmim', which in Hebrew means 'Sycamore'. No-one had heard of such a place. After a day, I ran into someone who thought that it was near a town near the Gaza border, and so I caught a bus, got off in the town, asked some questions, hung my head, and boarded the bus back to Be'er Sheva. The next day, someone told me it was near a military installation, and so I made my way out there. I spoke with the guards in the check-point, and they called their Colonel. Luckily, the Colonel and Tom were old army buddies, and the Colonel sent me to his house to stay until he finished his shift. Later on that evening, he drove me in an Israeli jeep with his insignia on its side into the desert south of Be'er Sheva, and into the heart of Israeli military land. Eventually we came to the tents of the Shiqmim camp, and I met Tom in person.







This was a very difficult dig. Water, which had to be hauled in, was at a premium, and so showers had to be short. The food was very bland and predictable, and the weather was excruciatingly hot. We would sweat, and then a cloud of dust would cover us completely. I was given a large circular burial to excavate, within which were the bodies of 10 people of the Chalcolithic period. Somewhere near the mid-point of the dig, I contracted a very bad case of gastro-enteritis, and was eventually brought nearly unconscious back to Be'er Sheva and its hospital. After four days on an intervenous bag (filled with water, sugar, salt, and antibiotics), I was ready to leave, and when I looked for my money belt, I realized that I had been robbed: all of my traveller's cheques were gone. I called my father at home, he wired money to the Foreign Office in Ottawa, who then wired the money to the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv. Because it was the holiday of Yom Kippur, they could not find anyone to drive the cheque to the hospital. Therefore, two diplomats drove from Tel Aviv to Be'er Sheva (some of the very religious threw stones at them while they drove) to hand deliver the cheque, so that I could leave the hospital. This was not the first or last time that my dad rescued me from a very tight spot.

I then returned to the dig, finished the season, and went back to England. However, there was something about the place that got under my skin. Perhaps it was because the archaeology was so outrageously wonderful: the artifacts seemed so different and bizarre, and they were so well preserved in a matrix almost completely dry. It also could be that what I had seen of the Middle East I really liked: a dig with living conditions hard as bullets, the majesty of the Old City of Jerusalem, the pastoral and nomadic Bedouin living in tents... it all seemed so alien, so complex, and so very intersting. I would then spend another 4 seasons in Israel, and 7 seasons in Jordan. This summer I am going back to Jordan. Yippee!