Day 7

Yesterday Greta, our host here, took us on a tour of the kibbutz and gave us a little bit of its history. In 1934 a group of people, mainly from eastern Europe, formed a small community in southern Palestine. In 1942 Jewish authorities, such as they were, decided that a Jewish presence was needed along the Golan Heights and a string of kibbutzim was founded. That small community moved north to start this kibbutz. And, sure enough, in 1948 they helped make this part of Palestine part of the new Israeli state. How close to the Golan Heights is Kibbutz Kfar Szold? As close as you can get:



Up on top is a plateau, a butte if you will, that was once Syria. There are 2 residents of the Kibbutz' old folks home who date back to 1934.

Here's a picture of our square showing what we are finding: nothing! Our neighboring square has walls, columns and other fun stuff. We aren't very deep yet but the site supervisor suggests this is the 13th century level. But no remains of earlier times sticking through.



A good time to mention my schedule. The van to the site leaves at 5am, John and I get up at 4:15. We work until 8:30 when breakfast comes over from the Kibbutz. Then we continue until 11:30 when we clean up and return. Lunch is at 1pm in the cafeteria of the Kibbutz' air conditioner factory. After lunch our square team washes the pottery we found the day before and which has been soaking since. Then we're free for the day (unless there is some need to return to the site). A little reading outside in the shade, web surfing, maybe a snooze. Supper at 7:30, maybe a lecture after and bed soon after that.

Didn't get to walk the perimeter yesterday because I went back out to the site for some "compulsory" volunteer work. Today's the day.

NEWS ALERT: An inscription has been found! We've learned this afternoon that a visitor prowling around our site today (what is that all about?) found a massive basalt inscription. The honchos went kinda bat-s***. It has the greek word for Augustus in it. Yikes. More tomorrow.