If you've never been on an excavation before, you might be wondering exactly what to expect. Here are some highlights.
On day three, travel from Jerusalem to Galilee. You'll arrive at the site, but before digging it's time for some introductions.
Tour Tel Shimron. Meet botanists, geologists, and other scientists who will be working alongside you. Learn how all of us work together to learn about the past. Then, after a short orientation meeting, it's time for an early evening. The morning will come quickly.
The day starts with a bus to the site- it leaves at 5:00am before the sun is up.
Everyone chips in to carry the tools to each excavation area
Experienced archaeologists teach techniques to make sure that everything is excavated properly and recorded carefully. All the clues to the past are collected
We dig from 5:00am until 1:00pm with breakfast at 9:00am. Five days a week, we uncover Tel Shimron's secrets. After you are with us for a while, a find from 3000 years ago will become the new normal.
We meet together one last time during the dig day, in the early evening, to have a lecture by one of the scholars on the team or from the region. The lectures explain archaeological techniques and survey the history of the Jezreel Valley.
As evening comes, we will all have dinner together and then are done. But it's a short evening. The schedule is the same the next day. We work Monday to Friday.
On the weekends early in the season, we'll arrange tours so that you can see some of the important sites in the region.
Later on, you will have weekends that are all your own- to hike with friends, to enjoy the cities of Israel, or just to relax in Nahalal. Your accomodations are yours, even on the weekends.
Credits:
Aerial photo of Nahalal from Wikimedia Commons; all other photos from the Tel Shimron Excavations