What does a registrar do??

Just about everything . . .

AD - queen registrar!

 We are very lucky to have AD with us full time this season as our excavation registrar.

Drying pottery awaiting the magic AD touch

What is a registrar? what do they do? A recent job description for a registrar states:

This needs some AD help!

- Develop procedures to review and verify object numbers, provenience and culture information.
- Research, verify, and correct object number problems that have been identified (improperly assigned suffixes, multiple objects with the same number, etc.).
- Research, verify, and correct object cataloging problems that have been identified (incorrect description, culture, geographic origin, etc.).

that doesn't even begin to cover it!

AD in action

But they (or at least AD our registrar extraordinaire) does so much more. This season (and in the pre-season) AD designed and implemented a filemaker pro database, brought us into the 21st century by lending us her ipad for fieldwork, she keeps the troops happy with pizza nights, she puts the water out (with ice) for the field every morning, she keeps the lab running along smoothly and makes sure that everything that comes in from the field is cataloged, recorded, washed, bagged and tagged, and labeled. And that's all before breakfast.


Sometimes they come to the field and help out with the excavations, or in this case helping out with the remote-controlled plane runway. Who knew what you could do with a law degree ???

Happy pottery markers!

 The key to a well run project is an organized and efficient registrar - we are so lucky that AD is on extended "sabbatical". THANKS AD!  We couldn't do it without you. 

Closing Trench CC

Trench CC came to a close yesterday for the season, and in true Trench CC fashion, it has left us with more questions then answers. 

There have been a number of interesting finds and some new architecture in the newly opened square. We've had two pyric structures in the current cultural  layer that we are ending with. 

The first was maybe a hearth or oven like structure, and the second which I worked on, was maybe a paved floor of some sort. The structure was first spotted by one of our sharp-eyed high schoolers,  M. 

When looking at the aerial shot of CC, you can see the hearth-structure at the beginning of this paved structure. 

As the excavation of this structure continued , a small amount of orange and red sediment appeared under the mudbrick holding the paving stones together. This area was labeled, and we continued excavate around the area. Right next to the pavement area, and may have been apart of the pavement structure at one point, there appear a huge amount of this red-orange-yellow sediment under the mudbrick.

 

It's really quite artistic, looks almost like a Van Gogh painting. 

Not much is known about this colorful sediment but it has been seen sparingly in other trenches under features. This large sample will be floated and hopefully upon further excavation next year, we will be able to figure out what purpose this brightly colored sediment served!

The Cool Crew

Chalcolithic Curiosity

It was pretty amazing to watch Curiosity land on Mars as I was processing finds from over 5,000 years ago.

Curiosity's first image from Mars from nasa.gov

Team Road Trip

Seems we just can't get enough of that Chalcolithic culture.  On our Saturday off (July 28th), most of us hit the road for the site of Rogem Hiri (Hebrew) or Rujm el Hiri (Arabic).  The site is located northeast of the Sea of Galilee.  C, our field supervisor, has dug at the site before.  This was great since, although the site is on the map, it is shown in the middle of nowhere.  Luckily we got there without a misstep.  After our adventures which included fording a stream and looking for cattle bones to study, we had a falafal and mezze lunch at a road side diner near the Sea of Galilee.

More information about the site is available at http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Early%20History%20-%20Archaeology/Rogem%20Hiri%20-%20Ancient-%20Mysterious%20Construction and http://digs.bib-arch.org/digs/rujm-el-hiri.asp.

Mid season update

As we approach the middle of the season, we have been taking low level aerial photographs using a 7m photo mast. These photos are used to create 3 dimensional models of the site. Below is a screen capture showing a top down view of a 3d model of areas AA and BB as they were on the morning of 7/24/12:

Rowe-Clark Math & Science Academy at Marj Rabba!

This year at Marj Rabba we have the biggest team ever - 24 people!!  We have students from UChicago, DePaul, Cornell College, a college in New Jersey, and 6 special guests from the Rowe-Clark Math & Science Academy in Chicago (http://www.roweclark.org/). These five students and their intrepid administrator, Ms. D. made the long journey (everyone had to get their first passport) to "experience" archaeology in Israel. Drs. Yo and Mo and Prof. Stein of the OI met with them throughout February and March for a mini "what is archaeology" course, so they had some idea of what to expect - but the real thing is nothing like this candy survey in the Lasalle-Banks Room at the OI.

Candy survey at the OI

R-C students and Ms. D at the OI

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drink water and wear a hat - the most important field lessons according to K!

The students and the amazing Ms. D. arrived on July 12 and started work in the field bright and early the next day at 5:30am. The following are some shots of the Rowe-Clark students and Ms. D. doing various things on site. Almost over night they have become "archaeologists" and have (or are) receiving training in all things archaeology.

Ms. D. at the sieve

E uses a small pick to explore in area CC

M trowels around in Area CC

H takes points and reads the total station for elevation data

S holds the prism for H - archaeology is team work!

As part of the Marj Rabba outreach program we try to engage with all kinds of people interested in learning about the Chalcolithic of the Galilee. We have been somewhat successful in having local visitors from Karmi'el and surrounding small towns and villages visit the site. We also get a lot of visitors from fellow archaeologists, but having the Rowe-Clark students with us is another example of outreach that we archaeologists often overlook: people in our own backyards (Chicago) who might be interested in archaeology in Israel. Thanks - Ms. D., E, M, H, S, and K, for all of your hard work this season, you all are real troopers!!

Week Two

We’ve finished our second week of excavations.  We put our excavation skills to work clearing a runway for the model airplane which will be used for aerial photography of the site.  After excavating, we attended a few lectures – Dr. Dina Shalem told us about Chalcolithic pottery; Dr. Yorke Rowan told us about the Chalcolithic Period and how to mark lithics; and Dr. Samuel Gazit of Ort Braude College told us about the College’s study abroad program for engineers (check out http://overseas.huji.ac.il/JGE).

We had some fun too – we took a tour of Tell Akko (known locally as Napoleon’s Hill).  After the tour, some of us went to explore Tell Akko, some of us went to Tel Aviv, and some of us hung out at Ort Braude College to catch up on our sleep.