Archaeological Finds

     Everyone you talk to who knows you dig always asks the inevitable question: "Have you ever found anything really exciting?" For most archaeologists the answer to this perpetual question usually goes something like this: Well, it depends on what you mean by exciting!" Of course the archaeologist can bet that the questioner most often has no idea what he or she means, but is hoping that the archaeologist will launch into a diatribe about some really fascinating find that will feed the imagination of the entire audience (whether it be an audience of one or one hundred). But let me tell you, this rarely happens! And when those really exciting finds are unearthed, it usually makes news headlines, and if you have any serious interest in archaeology, you will have already read about it (or will be seeing it soon on the History Channel!). Most Near East archaeologists are digging up ancient towns and cities, or fortresses and outposts, and while they are hoping to uncover some extremely important ancient text, or proof of some prominent ancient figure's existence, the day-to-day finds, while fascinating in every respect to the archaeologist, are often rather mundane and uninteresting to the average untrained individual. However, what the archaeologist learns to do most expertly (often in order to keep popular interest and therefore funding), is to tell stories of the ancient past that will bring those mundane objects to life! After all, it is the archaeologist's own vivid imagination, combined with his love of the past that keeps him returning to the field every season (either that, or he wants to escape the doldrums of academia, or both, more likely!).

     J was one of those professors who could make history pop off the page and literally walk across the room and breathe down your neck! With each power point presentation (which eventually replaced his thousands of slides, though unbelievably it still hasn't as yet for those archaeology dinosaurs!), he could mesmerize you with stories of horrific battles that left thousands lying slaughtered across fields, bloodying up the ground as their spears or hatchets, or swords and horses lay nearby; or of insane rulers who had rebellious or maybe even unsuspecting citizens beheaded, and with their heads still recognizable by their fearful eyes bulging out from their faces and with their hair all askew, had them mounted on tall spikes and displayed on city gates and walls, or lined up along roads into their cities; or of subjects being publicly burned, screaming as the flames engulfed them, scorching the flesh from their feet and legs before moving up the rest of their bodies; or of other powerful, yet brutal men pushing their personal attendants off of high cliffs, watching and listening as their bodies smashed on the rocks below, sometimes for no other reason than the pure sadistic pleasure of it; or stories of stronger men who were used as sport in the arena against wild beasts who would claw them to death and then shred them to pieces before cheering crowds of spectators. But then he could just as equally mesmerize you with stories of gods and saints, and elders and holy men who lived humbly and righteously, who sometimes gave up their lives, believing in something so strongly that nothing of this earthly existence mattered. He could bring to life all the ancient settings of the earliest civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, or the later civilizations of Greece and Rome, where the beginnings of western culture grew in splendor and magnificence.

     I wanted to catch some of that fever! I was digging up potsherds from the Bronze Age like they were candy. I was finding rims and handles, along with other pieces of pottery, all parts of cups and plates and bowls and storage jars, kitchen items I pictured women from the time of Moses using in their small houses to feed their families. I was trying desperately to imagine a time I had read about as a kid studying my bible correspondence lessons, a time in northern Jordan before Abila became a great Roman city, when life was more agrarian, more pastoral, much more like it was in the present day. A time when the God of the Old Testament was revealing Himself to individuals, to men who were eventually given the Ten Commandments and who entered into a covenant with Him that required so much duty and strict attention to detail that they would certainly fall short. Men so carnal in nature that they had to be told not to have sex with the beasts in their fields! Men who were firing pottery in kilns so that their wives could serve them meat and wine before lying down with them for comfort and warmth, and maybe even for love if they were lucky! I was falling in love with the Bronze Age in my imagination. And when I visited the museum of history in Amman I took more pictures of Bronze Age pottery than of anything else. While my home back in the states already housed a collection of potsherds that I had until now cared little about, I was beginning to connect to people of the ancient past because I personally had uncovered and then touched a piece of something well over a thousand years old! And I, too, became excited!