Hamas War

Monday, August 15, 2016

Archaeologist for A Day: Bucket List

After losing two close family members in the past few months, I've become a lot more aware of my own mortality. A number of years ago, when I hit sixty 60, it hit pretty hard that I had already lived much more than half my allotted time.  According to the traditional Jewish blessing, עד מאה ועשריםת ad me'ah vi'esrim, until a hundred and twenty, I had hit the halfway mark. But considering that my parents died in their 80's and 90's, and my brother was younger than me, I really have to take advantage of all opportunities. So this year when there was an announcement in our weekly newsletter about being "Archaeologist for A Day," I signed up. This was a Friday morning activity of just two hours, but still...

Living barely a mile from one of Israel's most exciting archaeological sites, Shiloh Hakeduma, the proven site of the Biblical Tabernacle, has its advantages. Wearing a serious sunhat and well-slathered with sunscreen, I was as prepared as I could be to work in the dig.

And of course just like any professional and/or amateur archaeologist, I had been hoping to find "something" that would make the boss/supervisor/head of site smile with interest. Pieces of jugs and bowls are rather old hat ordinary for someone like me, who has been in Shiloh for thirty-five 35 years.

But the truth is that even I was surprised to find something even more interesting, this knife piece. I'm waiting to hear of its significance. When it was passed to Reut Ben-Arye, the head archaeologist, she came back very excited and asked who had found it. "ME!" I happily said.




Will I volunteer again? I hope so, Gd willing.




7 comments:

Keli Ata said...

What a lovely post, Batya:)In case nobody has said it to you in a while, may you live to 120 years!

I must say, you look particularly beautiful in these pictures:)

Can I ask something special of you? Please pray for me, a general prayer for strength and mostly peace. Toda raba

Batya said...

Keli, thanks.
May Gd give you strength, peace and many blessings.

HDG, Yerushalayim, E"Y Shlemah said...

Mazal tov on your finding, Batya! Wonder what kind of knife it was.

Anonymous said...

כי רצו עבדיך את אבניה

Batya said...

Thanks amen

Sammy Finkelman said...

Is thata stone knife?

fro what period oftime is that, does anyone know?

I read that there was a (revival?) of the use of stone dishes during the late oeriod of the second temple, because anything made of stone cannot become Tumay - unlike pottery - and people were very interested in not being Timay - pbecause of Terumah and so on like that.

Batya said...

Yes, it's some sort of stone. I haven't gotten a report from the head archaeologist yet.