During the summer of 1998, after my semester studying in Israel, I joined
a team of students from the University of Rochester for a University-sponsored
archaeological excavation of a synagogue at Bar'am, in northern Israel,
just one mile from the Lebanon border. The synagogue is especially renowned
for its stunning facade, which faces south towards Jerusalem, and is virtually
undamaged. The excavation's primary goals were to date the synagogue scientifically
and develop a fresh understanding of its history.
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The remains of the synagogue at Bar'am, Israel, from roughly the fourth century AD. |
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1) Several dozen Roman coins 2) Hundreds of shards of pottery 3) Lots of things that we thought could be something important but weren't. 4) Hundreds of pounds of dirt and rock that we had to replace before we left. |
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| What Ken found was far more interesting. After an entire month of fantasizing about finding the "Secret Room", he did just that. On the left Ken is sitting above the entrance to the Secret Room, an open cavity underneath the remnants of a synagogue. And on the right Ken is actually inside his Secret Room (look closely for the white guy). Unfortunately, time did not permit a full excavation of the Secret Room, and we were forced to close off the entrance. What could be down there? Some fancy weapons? A special burial? The Holy Grail? The Lost Ark? A laptop? Cell phone? I guess we will never know. But knowing Ken's knack for the extreme, I bet it was something unbelivable. | |
| My archaeology friends! We had our fun. Pictured are Andy, Chris, Eileen, Berkowitz, Kara, and Ken. This evening we camped out at Montfort, an old Crusader castle positioned on a hilltop in a forested Galilean valley. The castle can be seen in the background.... |  |
 ....We
brought tons of supplies for our overnight journey. Check out all
the grub! Ruffles, Cheerios, eggs, apples, pita bread, tuna fish,
Pepsi, peanut butter - even a couple of bottles of WINE. The Crusaders
would have killed for such a meal. But despite our supermarket, we
neglected to bring suitable warm clothing..... and paid for it dearly.
That was the worst night of sleep that any of us have had. Temperatures
dropped, and the seven of us were forced to huddle together on the
floor of the castle in a futile attempt to stay warm. I wrapped a
towel around my legs to no avail. I also wrestled as much blanket
as I could away from those on either side of me, but still only managed
30 minutes of sleep that night. And poor Ken, the one time he was
able to doze off, his snoring forced the rest of us to abruptly wake
him up.... |
| .....THE MORNING AFTER. This is one of my all time favorite pictures. Everybody may look pleasant and agreeable, but after the sleepless night of fighting for control of the four available blankets, we were all ticked at each other. At least we still had some wine left. |  |
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A couple weeks later we went camping in the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea. It didn't get nearly as cold at night, but we had to contend with the wolves / foxes / coyotes that were trying to steal our stock of food. |
Two donkeys pretending like they are eating in the Judean desert. Those rocks sure look absolutely irresistable, don't they? |
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The streets of Safed, where Jewish artsy folk congregate. |
Jewish Mysticism. Don't ask me, I really don't know. You better be good at math, though. |
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Rabbi ZZ Top. This Orthodox rock group was playing 'The Messiah Blues' ("Well, we've been waiting now for two thousand years") bemoaning the lack of a Jewish Temple. They'll be opening for Metallica this summer. |
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Jose, my group leader during the dig.
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