Tel Burna, 2023

The Tel Burna excavation started during restoration week at Shiloh. Last year, I went to Tel Burna for two weeks after finishing at Shiloh. This year, I knew that it would be too much for me to do two digs back to back. I was exhausted from the Shiloh dig, and I needed to rest, but I didn’t want to miss out on the Burna dig altogether. So, I ended up deciding just to dig for a day and to make a relaxing vacation out of it.

On Tuesday afternoon, I headed south. I stopped in Jerusalem to run some errands, and from there, I drove to the kibbutz where the dig team headquarters. I found the staff reading pottery at a large table in the shade of a tree. Volunteers relaxed and visited at nearby tables. I found my classmate, Tiffany, waiting for her turn at pottery reading. We hung out for a while and caught up on what each other had been up to for the past couple months.

Kittens of various shapes and sizes chased each other around the courtyard. Some were very skittish, others were bold enough to let people pet them. One of the kittens only had three legs. Emma, one of the students, named it Yardstick (because it had three feet, just like a yardstick!). It seemed to get around just as well as its other littermates. Emma tried to get me to take Yardstick home with me, but I knew it would be a bad idea for me to have a pet, given how often I’m away from home.

After pottery reading, I went home with Leah, who lives near the dig site. We swam leisurely in her backyard pool, and then her husband grilled steaks and hamburgers for dinner. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a steak, and this one was grilled to perfection.

I spent the night at Leah’s, and we got up bright and early to head to Tel Burna. Since Leah drives a Jeep, she was able to drive up the tel, saving me an early morning hike! I got assigned to work in Area B2. This area is a row of squares creating a cut in the side of the tel. The casemate city wall runs through the area. I worked inside the city wall. They had excavated a room with a burn destruction layer in it. I was assigned to a small area just outside the room. My goal was to find the same destruction layer in that area, but when I reached the floor level, there was no destruction layer to be seen.

Throughout the day, I took a little time to visit a few other areas to see how things were progressing across the site. In one area, they were continuing to expose the city gate. Another area was excavating a deep silo, and another area was uncovering Late Bronze Age storerooms.

Around 1:00, we headed back to the kibbutz. There, we had lunch, washed pottery, and the staff read pottery. After pottery washing, I relaxed for a while and then worked on labelling diagnostic sherds.

When pottery reading was finished, I headed back to Leah’s for another swim in the pool and another steak dinner. I spent the night again, and in the morning, I headed back home to Eli feeling rested and ready to tackle my enormous to-do list.