Today, courtesy of Emily, one of the Harvard Summer School students, we have a post about our study tour last week as well as working at Megiddo. Enjoy.
***
Hi, I'm Emily, one of the Harvard Summer School Students and one of the remaining members of the dig after being relocated to the Megiddo Excavation in the north of Israel. I am a rising sophomore at Harvard College planning on studying Human Evolutionary Biology and Chemistry, and decided to participate in the summer school to learn about the field of archaeology, to travel, and for the rare experience of participating on a dig. And it has been quite an experience.
In Ashkelon, I was part of the team in Grid 51 beginning to uncover the 604 BC destruction by Nebuchadnezzar, but I am currently with 13 other members of the dig now working in Megiddo. Between our current digging on the new site and the rest of the group departing, we continued our tour of Northern Israel. On July 11th we enjoyed an evening in Caesarea, which has been a port city since in was built by Herod the Great in the Roman Era. The integration of the ruins with the modern harbor made it a fascinating and beautiful place to be. On July 12th, we visited the Hecht Museum in Haifa where we all lit up with the incredible collection of artifacts, as well as ones we recognized from Ashkelon like the dog burials, and went to Old Akko where we immersed ourself in both the culture by dining on Arabian food in the bazaar and tourism through exploring the Crusader underground tunnels and citadel. These trips only added to the previous days of touring sites around the north.
The past few days we have been volunteering at the Megiddo dig, which is quite a different experience than Ashkelon. I feel very privileged to be able to see what another site is like and am very glad that I remained in Israel. Though it was not what I expected and would of course rather be spending this week in Ashkelon, the trip to the north and now Megiddo have added a whole other dimension to the summer.
***