As you probably know, I am in Israel for a month this summer-- rounding out my study abroad year by doing an archaeological dig at Megiddo (the site of Biblical Armageddon) near the city of Nazareth (sound familiar?). We are in the middle of Week Two currently, and I am working Sunday through Thursday from 5 am to 1 pm at a site on Tel Megiddo. Job description: hard labor. We spend the days filling sandbags, troweling dirt, using pick axes, and carrying buckets of unusable dirt up to wheelbarrows outside of our site, among other things. Occasionally, as you might expect, we come across artifacts in the dirt, such as pottery shards (small broken pieces of former vessels and bowls, etc.), bones (mostly animal), charcoal, flint stones, petrified seeds, and grinding stones. These objects are then collected and classified through a series of tags and buckets. These are all objects used to date and describe the site we are working in (for example, Late Bronze Age domestic site).
Wait, that all sounds awfully prosaic, right? When do the fedora and whip come into the picture? How many Nazis and heart-ripping Shamans have we fought off? Well, hate to break it to you, but archaeology is not the stuff of Indiana Jones movies. In fact, if Indy was an “archaeologist,” he would be sacked immediately if he was ever even hired (not that every single archaeologist doesn’t appreciate the sexy allure brought to the profession by Harrison Ford and his careless whip-cracking and cocky smile). No, archaeology is truly a science of details and patience and “controlled destruction.” As archaeologists like to tell you, they are the only scientists who destroy their research subjects. In order to fully excavate a site, buildings built on top of one another over the course of history must be dismantled to reach lower levels, so unless a building is particularly spectacular or the site is finished, each level is destroyed after study in order to reach the next level.
Just wanted to include a little graphic for you, to give you some idea. The Valley of Jezreel runs west-east, and the yellow highlighted route is the Via Maris (the road turns inland at Megiddo because the lands directly along the coast were too marshy for heavy traffic.
Is that the sun rise? Oh no, that’s the moon still up when we arrive to begin digging each day—a little unsettling. 
A photo of part of our dig site. This was the last shot we were taking of this level (these stones), and we took them away a few days ago to begin anew with another level (an older one) underneath.
BONES! These are some bones I found my second day at the site. We are not sure what sort of creature they belong to, but our archaeozoologist will be taking a look at them soon. I got to use dental tools and paint brushes to dig them out--a nice respite from all the pickaxing.
One spectacularly dirty day at the dig site. Here I'm holding the level for our supervisors to take an accurate reading of how far we've dug for the day.
Our view off the Tel. A “Tel” is a large mound, usually created when cities or villages are built layer after layer over top of one another. Through natural processes, when a city is abandoned or a natural disaster occurs, a lot of earth begins to collect, and eventually it covers sites that were formerly at ground level. Over thousands of years, an artificial mountain of sorts is created, chock full of old homes and palaces and city walls, etc. Voila! A tel! So, are these large yellow ridges in the photo a part of the Tel itself? No, actually. Every dig generates a lot of extra dirt that has to be dumped somewhere. The scale of University of Chicago’s dig in the 1920s was so large that this is their dirt dump, almost as tall as the Tel itself, and grown over with grass.
Some of the modern architecture along Tel Aviv's beach promenade. Tel Avivis (as they are called) are friendly and very helpful. They have a strange obsession, I noticed, with dogs. Tel Avivis love their dogs, and take them everywhere--the beach, clothing stores, cafes, you name it. Since most of my stay in Tel Aviv happened during Shabbat, or the Jewish holy day of the week (which happens from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset), it felt like everyone was on a short beach holiday.
In the old port city of Jaffa (pronounced "Yafo" in Hebrew). It was formerly a great trading center, but it's importance was diminished by the Israeli victory over the Arabs here in 1948, and by the growing next-door port of Tel Aviv. Now, Jaffa is a quaint little suburb of Tel Aviv, and just a short walk down the promenade from downtown. It has a multi-ethnic, multi-religion population, as evidenced by the many functional mosques, synagogues, and churches inside the city.
Watching the sunset at the end of Shabbat on the beach in Tel Aviv. The beach chairs, which were full to capacity all day, have been abandoned for local cafes, restaurants, and, eventually, clubs and nightlife—Tel Aviv is definitely Israel’s hippest city.
We had a one day weekend after our first week of digging, and 3 friends and I went to the city of Akko, a port city near Haifa (north of Tel Aviv) with an even longer and more illustrious history than Megiddo. Leaving from the kibbutz to get to Akko was much more difficult than originally anticipated, because our weekend coincided with Shabbat and no public buses run that day (and Jewish-owned taxis cost at least twice what they would on a normal day). Unsure of how we could get off the kibbutz, we lucked out when a solitary cab came to pick up another group, and I was able to talk to the driver in Arabic. It was a proud language day because I was able to explain our situation, our itinerary, clear up problems for the other group that was going (since they didn't speak Arabic), and bargain our price for not only that trip, but for the return trip as well. Many of the Israelis in the north are Arab, and so the taxi was not exorbitantly priced, and the driver and I had a pretty lengthy conversation as I wracked my brain for all of the Arabic I had forgotten just in the last 3 weeks. It was great. Anyway, the above picture was taken at the beach in Akko--I liked it because, though the man is standing on breakers, he looked like he was a fisherman walking on top of the sea--a lot like some other famous man from around these parts...So, I would love to write more about Israel, but I should have more time to update you at the end of the blog when I go to Jerusalem for 4 days. If not then, I should be able to say more once I arrive home. My flight leaves from Tel Aviv on July 9. How strange it will be to come home...
But, anyway, moving forward (which is technically backward) to tell you a little bit about Cyprus. So, how was Cyprus?
Frankly, it was nothing close to what I expected.
Perhaps I can give this as a small example: The only people I a) befriended or b) had any human interaction with besides, “Yes, I’d like peach iced tea, please.” were foreigners. It appeared to me that Cypriots were not particularly friendly or welcoming to strangers carrying large suitcases. They also seemed to have very little pride in their cities and even less information about what activities, lodging, or history existed in their country. My first day, still at the airport collecting luggage, I asked about a bus. “Oh, I don’t know,” said the woman behind the desk causally, as if she had never even heard of such a thing. When I asked how much a taxi might cost should there not be a bus, she replied “Oh, I have no idea.” Argh. “Why did you come here?” Cypriots would not ask but charge; it was said not with a charming smile and a hint of hospitality, but with a bit of incredulity that someone would have such a dumb idea in their minds.
Hmmm, good question…
But, actually, I’m sure I’m not giving Cyprus a fair shake here. There are many personal interpretations to be had, and mine just reflects, well, me. It is always a little bit challenging to travel on your own, and with no one else to bolster flagging spirits or laugh off problems with, it’s easy to get into doldrums. In fact, that’s basically exactly what Cyprus felt like, the doldrums after a good sail through the semester into Athens. Perhaps it was much needed downtime or personal reflection time following Cairo, but it never truly felt that much like a vacation. I think, what it all boils down to, is that I wanted to go to Cyprus to see the culture, the “real” Cyprus. What I found instead were people and places unwilling to share themselves with me—the hospitality and openness of the Middle East were gone. “I expected more out of Cyprus,” said an Israeli woman I talked to at the airport. That ambiguous statement sums up my feelings as well…
In order to remedy the sense that I was missing the “real” Cyprus, I decided to do what all the other tourists were doing (“when in Cyprus…”), which was drinking iced coffees or margaritas on beach chairs along the Mediterranean. I stopped traveling after two days in Nicosia, and spent my last two sunning and sipping coffees with short ocean swim breaks—maybe Cyprus wasn’t so bad after all…
Want to include a few Cyprus pictures (with long captions, of course). Enjoy!
So, first of all, I want to say just a little about the two Cypruses: the internationally-recognized Cyprus, and the TRNC-the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. You may already know all about this, but the general history of the divide is as follows, according to a recent NYT article: “Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1964, when fighting between the majority Greek Cypriots and minority Turkish Cypriots got bad enough for the United Nations to create a buffer zone. The dividing line was named the Green Line because a United Nations officer used a green pen to draw the border on a map. In 1974, Athens, then run by a military dictatorship, engineered a failed coup that was supposed to unite the island with Greece. Turkey reacted by invading the northern third, which it has occupied ever since.” I took this photo of the guarded Green Line from Northern Cyprus. I made an unintentional turn down a street making up a part of the Green Line when I first came over to that side, and was instantly chased down by UN soldiers who ordered me away...oops. 
Another map (I pretty obviously love maps), showing the line between recognized Cyprus and the TRNC. For the first time in 44 years, the main pedestrian border between the two sides was opened on Ledra street in Nicosia. I was free to walk back and forth after the TRNC looked at my passport and stamped a piece of paper (if they had stamped into my actual passport, it could have caused trouble with the Cyprus government when I left the country). I spent the night on the Turkish side, because it was slightly cheaper, and I was really struck by the differences between the two. The recognized Cyprus side is a member of the EU, and the streets are well maintained and the buildings modern and occupied. The Turkish side feels more deserted, and has crumbling buildings here and there which still retain their bulletholes from former skirmishes. They are two different worlds, and it will take more than just political reconciliation to bring them back together again.
In downtown Nicosia, on the “Cyprus” side of the capital, this tree is adorned with yellow ribbons and photos and memorials to “disappeared” victims of the 1974 invasion by Turkey. Greek Cypriots claim that thousands of civilians were captured and “disappeared” after the invasion—they have not been heard from since.
In Ataturk Square in North Cyprus Nicosia. Efes is a Turkish brand of beer ubiquitous in Istanbul (and Nicosia, it seems). Above this you can see the large photo of Ataturk--if the photo here was better, you could tell that his face is directed toward a strong beam of light coming from above--divine inspiration?
Aww, I really couldn't resist. How cute is this kitten?
What is this? Something you definitely wouldn't find in Cairo (or America for that matter): public recycling bins. Ahhh...
What most people prefer to do in Cyprus, and, really, can you blame them?
1 comment:
Wonderful images. Your blog is incredibly interesting, we need to put pictures from these next few days up as well:)
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