All in all day one was successful. I cleared a trench another 10 centimeters. It was hard work and took me the whole time we were at the site.
We got up at 4:45am... it came way too soon... Up and dressed... Off we went! We headed to the site but one girl got sick so we had to drive her back. Finally, we make it to the site to eat a small breakfast of cereal and watch the sunrise. Then we walked over to the dig site. The synagogue isn't being touched right now but instead we worked on a row of Jewish houses from the same time period. I sat in this trench from 6 until 1:30 digging up pieces of pots. Around me they found some coins and glass too. We were pulling up pieces of these people's lives!The routine was the same...
- Swing the pickax, chomp up the ground. If I got stuck on a rock, my kind neighbor, Carlos (an older gentleman from Mexico) would help me out.
- Sit on the ground and bend down with a small pickax and clear the sides that are more delicate than the middle... the sides near the wall that we don't want to collapse or the side near the string that marks the area we are digging.
- Then sit on your tush and break up the clumps to ensure that you don't have a tiny coin in there or a piece of pottery.
- If you find something, it goes in the appropriate bag. One big one for pottery, one for shells, animal bones, or glass. Coins get handed to the boss.
- Then use the bottom of a big broom and sweep up the dirt into a dust pan and dump it into a bucket.
- Repeat.
Once your bucket is full, call one of the Israelis or Russians over to dump the large rocks or sift the dirt to see if you missed anything.We broke at 10:30 for actual breakfast and then we took a breather at noon. We finished for the day at 1:30... and boy was I ready. My hands hurt to open or close and my back from stooping. It was quite an odd position to be in. We got back to the church where we are staying and had lunch at 2.All in all a good day... but I learned something today... maybe with practice I could do this every day but... wow! Chewing up the ground with a pickax is hard work for a small girl! I am totally not pulling the girl card... just that this sucker was heavy and even the small pickax became hard to hold. Hitting rocks with a pickax hurts your bones.Here is your lesson for the day -Wielding a pickax. Stand firmly with your dominant foot in front of the other. Don't bend over too much. Swing pick side into the hard packed, clay like earth. Straight down, just a bit towards you. Then let the tool pull up some earth. Don't stand there beating the ground like a mad person... it doesn't help. Thanks to Carlos for the lessons. And thanks to Carlos for helping me get out my big rocks.