Each year since summer of 2000, Dr. Dale Manor, professor of Bible and archeology, has brought groups of students and professors from a number of universities with him to the Beth-Shemesh excavation site.
Beth-Shemesh was the main town on the south side of the valley about 12 miles west of Jerusalem where Samson lived during Old Testament times.
“The most amazing thing about the trip was when I finally dug up my first piece of pottery,” said Harding graduate Ben Johnson, who spent his summer of 2010 at Harding University in Greece and spent a week working in the ongoing archaeological excavation. “I knew that it hasn’t been seen or held in thousands of years. To my demise, I found out that finding a broken piece of pottery was not uncommon. We would empty buckets upon buckets of broken pottery. But when I think about it, how many other people in the world have had the chance to dig on an archaeology site in Israel?”
Students from across the country join the dig.
“Most of the people who go with me are just people from other places, such as teachers and faculty members from York College and Faulkner University,” Manor said. “One year, the HUG program came in the summer and they excavated there for a week, but last year I had I think one student who came with me, and the maximum I’ve ever had with me from Harding was three or four.”
Although a rewarding experience, excavation is neither glamorous nor easy, Manor said. Volunteers wake up at about 4:30 each morning in order to arrive at the site of the dig before sunrise. Once on location, the team sweeps up and prepares for the day’s work. As the sun begins to peak above the horizon, members of the crew utilize the good light to photograph artifacts of pottery, tools, buildings and whatever else has been recently uncovered. Excavation begins at about 8 a.m. and continues until the day’s first break, usually between 10 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Afterward, workers dig until 1 p.m., when they leave for the day to eat lunch. At 3 p.m. it is time to clean the artifacts before they “read the pottery,” determining the age, origins and other information surrounding each piece.
Many Harding students and professors who have spent time at Beth-Shemesh with Manor, such as Dr. Philip Thompson, associate professor of Bible, said they gained a new appreciation for archaeology after the trip.
“Digging is hard work that demands mental concentration and physical stamina,” Thompson said.”Thus, I gained a much greater appreciation for theartifacts thatfind their way tomuseums.Standing before display cases at museums in Athens, London, Istanbul or D.C.,I now wonder, ‘How many years of back-breaking work were expended to uncover that find?'”
Manor said he plans to excavate again this summer from June 10 to July 5, although no students are currently signed up to come with him.
“I don’t really recommend anyone should go if they don’t really want to go, because it’s a lot of work,” Manor said. “But most people go with an increased appreciation of what archaeology is. I mean, it’s thrilling to find something that has not been exposed for 3,000 years and be almost the first, if not the first, to look at it and touch it and take it out of the ground. I mean, that’s just, wow. That’s hard to beat.”
Students who are interested in joining Manor this summer to excavate at Beth-Shemesh have until April 15 to sign up. Manor said to contact him by email or visiting his office.
