Well, we are back from our weekend up north in the Jezreel Valley. We had a great time. We are now currently in the winter/rainy season but it’s only sprinkled once or twice. Which is somewhat normal for Oct/November. But, the weather this weekend was beautiful! God was incredibly faithful all weekend.

There were only 7 students, Bryan, and Dr. Wright. The smaller group made it more fun and much more casual and relaxed. Plus we were all 2nd year students so there was more exploring, freedom, and discussion the entire weekend. We went to a few places that not even Dr. Wright had been able to get to before so it was new for all of us. We drove through cities, into fields, through vineyards, and cow pastures, we climbed over and through fences, walked through a ton of pricker bushes, over streams, and up and down tells.

People tend to live in the same areas over long periods of time. After awhile those areas tend to get built up because of garbage, destruction of a city that is just left there in ruins and then another group comes and builds on top of it… Even in Jerusalem when you go to the Old City the streets on which Jesus actually walked are about 20 feet (?) below where the streets are today. Hence archaeologists dig to find objects buried in the dirt. With the passage of time signs of life get covered up and over.

A tell is a mound of dirt/objects that was created by one city being built on top of the ruins of another. After thousands of years they can great pretty big. Because people have been living in this part of the world since almost day one there are quite a few tells and they are quite high. If archaeologists get to the tell first, or if they think it was an important city in history they will sometimes put a fence around the tell and/or dig within the tell to discover its secrets. If the average farmer gets to the tell first, or if it isn’t thought to be that important the tell can be destroyed through use of the soil by farmers, looted, or just completely ignored.

The first picture is of us walking towards Tell Qashish. It’s the mound of dirt in the middle of the field. It was actually excavated. Once a site has been excavated it’s usually ignored by scholars unless there’s something of importance or a reason to keep it ‘up.’

The second picture is of me teaching- it went very well thank you. I rather enjoyed it and wouldn’t mind doing it again. 🙂

The third picture is of us going into a firing zone. Because it was Shabbat they weren’t working so we weren’t too concerned.