Excavating

Daily routine:

Copyright © 2013 Ein el-Jarba Excavation Project. All Rights Reserved

• 4:30 AM: Getting up
• 5 AM: leave accommodation in Hazorea, walk to site
• 5:15 AM: Beginning of work at the site
• 7 AM: 15 min coffee break, fruit/cake
• 9 AM: breakfast (salad, cottage, white cheese, tuna etc)
• 11 AM: fruit break
• 1 PM: end of excavation work => lunch in Kibbutz (ca. 13:15)
• 2:30 PM: find washing and find processing (ca 1-2 hours, depending on number of finds).
• 7 PM: dinner (cold dinner)

Those interested in documentation and excavation methodology should let me know when excavating, and we will introduce you to locus numbers, the bench mark and archaeological drawing.

On safety:

Archaeology is quite a physical exercise. You will be moving most of the day outside. Do not be surprised when you find yourself sleeping like a baby despite the fact that your bed is far less comfortable than what you are used at home. At every archaeological excavation, SAFETY HAS UPPERMOST PRIORITY! Avoid injuries and illness, applying common sense and alertness.

Copyright © 2013 Ein el-Jarba Excavation Project. All Rights Reserved

Make sure you DO NOT work in the earth with your hands, but with tools (snakes, spiders, scorpions), only lift what your back and your knees can deal with, don’t get dehydrated or a heatstroke (we will be working in the shade though), don’t fall over the ropes attached to the shade-cloth, don’t fall on protruding metal poles, don’t hit your foot with a pickaxe, don’t get stuck with the pickaxe in the shade-cloth, then dropping it on your head etc. (All injuries in this list are purely fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental…) Ein el-Jarba is not a dangerous site, but very serious accidents have happened on archaeological projects. Do please take this seriously.

On our photo/facebook-policy:

I highly encourage you to take photos and post them on Facebook! Your posts are my free advertizing, which helps getting people interested in the project. There are only few exceptions, and I urge you to take this very seriously, as it protects the project. Please do not take pictures of:

• archaeological features with a scale while the site photographer is taking publication photos 
• finds, which have been explicitely prohibited to be photographed (very rare)
• the “Krak des Chevaliers”, the exposed, unflattering backside of your fellow excavators. This doesn’t harm the project, but I don’t want to ruin anybody’s chance to find a proper job…

I trust every participant to be responsible and not to harm the project. This allows us to be very free about our photo policy!