Shalom from Huqoq, Israel!

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By: Megan Hynek, 2013 Platt Fellowship recipient

Deciding to dig in Israel was an easy decision. I am currently a fourth year archaeology student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All archaeology students there are required to attend a dig field school. We have several options including digs in northern Peru, Mississippi, and Crete. I decided to travel to Israel after attending a lecture by the dig director, Dr. Jodi Magness during which she discussed the finds of the previous dig season. Her goals are to excavate and date a Galilean synagogue. During the second season well preserved figurative floor mosaics were discovered, making the dig all the more exciting. The figures included a narrative from the Hebrew Bible of Samson and the foxes (Judges 15: 1-5) I already had an inclination to go to Israel simply because I love exploring, and it seemed as different a place as I could get . So, despite my family’s hesitance regarding the political situation and State Department travel warning, on May 19, I flew to Tel Aviv and got the bus to Huqoq in the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee.

I am currently into my fourth week of digging. On the first day, this is what we had to work with in my square SW 5/5: (more…)

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