Archeologists-Friday am (day 5)

The dig was to a site that was an ancient city--When the area was about to be taken over by the Jews, the people in the area chose to leave rather than convert.  There are 5,000 caves in the area and the dig has been going on for 28 years.  We excavated "Buffy", and a sign in the cave showed where they started and how much had been dug before us.  We found pieces of pottery, iron, coal and animal bones!  We then went to a fully completed, excavated cave where we saw that it had been an olive oil making "factory"--there was a huge press for making the oil, and from that we learned they had exported oil as their economy.  The sophistication of what they had done back 2000 years ago was fascinating, and humbling.   The third phase was a crawl through a yet to be excavated tunnel, which made for yet another claustrophobic but fun experience.  After the 3 adventures, we heard about significant finds in the caves, including a tablet with writings that showed it was from the time of the Maccabees and the oppression of the Jews by the Greeks.

 A limerick from Jeff:

We went on a dig to fill buckets

We brought them up to truck it 

We sifted and shook

To get a good look

But after a while we said f** it.