Digging @ Ashkelon: Post 3

The last couple days were rough (yes my birthday too). I started on Monday by digging out a foundation trench. A foundation trench is dug for a wall. Then large stones would be placed in the bottom of the trench. Then the wall would be placed in that trench and built up. Lastly, the wall would be anchored with material on the side of it above ground. This was a straightforward job and fairly enjoyable.

Then I moved on to another room in the Iron I Philistine house. My job was to clean a wall and try to find an entry door. I spent the rest of Monday and all day on Tuesday picking, patiching, and sweeping this wall. It had some winter rain rot on it. I scraped it, and I brushed it some more. All in all I spent some 10 hours on this wall. I did find the entry way, which was piled up with mud bricks in a semi-regular construction (including some vertical bricks on the end). There was also a variation of bricks with later sun-dried or perhaps baked bricks.

All this led up to today (Wednesday), which was probably my second favorite day of archaeology yet. Today we fine grided the floor the room I’ve been working in. This means that we put down meter by meter twine to mark out squares on the floor. Then I worked with two other excavators to patiche a few centimeters of the floor of the room so that it can be “floated.” The process of floating involves taking samples (usually of floor) carefully demarcating their exact location. The sample when filled in a bucket with water has the biological remnants rise to the surface. This often can reveal the eating habits or materials used inside the Philistine home that end up on the floor (just like in our kitchens today!).

This room may in fact be a kitchen as we also uncovered a hearth and perhaps a baking tray. I personally found a spindle made of bone. This would seem to confirm this room as occupied by women (see Stager and King Life in Biblical Israel p. 152). We also worked at finding the next level of sub-floor trying to be careful of heading to the next occupation which would have been Late Bronze Egyptian occupation. This important work on the floor also involved 1:1 sifting as I mentioned in Digging @ Ashkelon: Post 2.

An Ashkelon Biblical Tidbit:

Perhaps the most famous Ashkelon biblical reference is in Judges 14. Samson was down in Timnah and saw a Philistine woman that he wanted to marry. On his way he killed a lion and didn’t tell his parents. A few days he walked by the carcass and a swarm of bees had made a hive there with honey. Samson gives some companions for his wedding of the Philistine woman a riddle to figure out. "Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet."

The men couldn’t figure it out so they pressed Samson’s wife to find out. She nagged him and Samson told her. She told the men, who then gave the answer to Samson to avoid the cost of the bet for not arriving at the answer (30 pieces of linen and 30 changes of clothes). Samson is angry with the men, knowing how they got the answer. He makes a crass sexual comment of them plowing with his heifer. To repay the bet Samson goes to the nearby Philistine city of Ashkelon killed 30 men and gave their garments to the men. Samson didn’t get to keep his wife after this Ashkelon incident as she was given to his companion, perhaps his best man. A Philistine city was used to repay the Philistine trickery.

Digging @ Ashkelon: Post 2

Sifting is a process of great importance to the archaeological endeavor. After removing dirt and placing it in a floppy pail (called a goofa), excavators must sift through the dirt to see if there are any remains that may have been missed. Excavators are always placing pottery sherds and bones into buckets designated for the area where they are working. Beyond this there is a ratio of sifting corresponding to the importance of the area where they are working. For example in general fill material the sifting ratio may be 5:1 or 7:1. This would mean that of five buckets of material collected only one would need sifting. In more important areas the sifting may be more focused such as 3:1 or as I was doing on Thursday 1:1! The 1:1 sift is time consuming as one can imagine how quickly a bucket can be filled with dirt. Then after it is filled it must be sifted.

The sifting process is the dumping of a bucket into a sift (a hanging box with wire to allow small material to pass through, leaving only larger chunks to be observed). At the grid I am working in (Grid 38) we have two sifts that hang from a tree and are almost constantly in use. After shaking the sift to reveal the larger chunks that remain, I look through sherds of pottery and bone fragments to be taken back to my areas processing bucket.

Additionally, we also do fine sifting in cases where especially small material culture may be expected. On Thursday I was working in a peculiar room that as of yet is fully identified. We have found hundreds of tiny, multi-color beads in this particular room. I have the privilege of finding a handful of beads on Thursday that would have been strung on a necklace of some sort. The process of finding them involved this fine sifting that does demand a large portion of time. The rich benefit of the time is a step closing in understanding the function of the room in the daily life of the Philistines, who occupied this place.It is overwhelming at points to be looking at walls and floors and touching beads and other objects that a Philistine used back in 1100-1200 BCE.

An Ashkelon Biblical Tidbit:
Check out Joshua 1:1-3 and Judges 1:18-19. These verses first look to be in contradiction, but when read carefully it is interesting to see the perspectival differences of each. Judges seems to show a contradiction with Joshua in verse 18, but verse 19 explains the plains (where Ashkelon is) could not be captured due to a superior cultural/military ability of the Philistines.