While the students on the previous pages conducted archaeological research in Decorah’s beautiful corner of the world, other students participated in digs and research further afield. In May and June, Dan Davis, associate professor of classics, took two groups of students on archaeology trips to Israel and Greece.
Robert Muller ’20, Zachary Ziarnik ’21, and Anna Luber ’20 (who also participated in the northeast Iowa burial mounds research) accompanied Davis to the Caesarea Archaeology Project in Israel, May 9 to June 2. They were part of a team that also included 22 undergraduate students from Vanderbilt University and a staff of six, including Davis as trench supervisor.
The team started new excavations on the north side of a massive temple platform built by Herod the Great in the final years of the first century BCE. The top of the giant platform held a temple of Roma and Augustus as a way for Herod to pay respects to Romans, who had set him up as a client king of Judea.
The area, Davis explains, is basically a trapezoid defined by the north wall of the temple platform and a major paved boulevard into the city. There are over 21 feet of cultural material in the area. “Like digging down through a layer cake,” Davis says, “we excavated the upper levels, which date to the Crusader period and slightly earlier, during the Arab occupation.” The team encountered a lot of small and large walls, various rough pavements, the remains of three humans, tamped-earth floors, and features associated with cooking and water supply. The artifacts they found include a tremendous amount of pottery fragments, glass, stone objects, and coins that helped them date each occupational level.
The students on the trip learned the fundamentals of field excavation: laying out grids; excavating and recognizing archaeological stratigraphy; recovering human remains; identifying diagnostic features of pottery and glass; washing, recording, and drawing artifacts; and interpreting cultural remains in their historical contexts. On weekends, the entire team boarded buses to visit a variety of sites, including the Galilee region, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea region, and Tel Aviv.
In Greece, Collin Carpenter ’19 and Alex Aakre ’19 joined three students from Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) for the Kenchreai Archaeology Project, June 4–23. During this study season, the students helped staff process archaeological remains from a previous excavation in order to prepare a major publication. They helped wash, sort, and analyze pottery and learned how to conserve and repair broken ceramic vessels, as well as how to register and draw artifacts to exacting scientific precision. On days off, the group made excursions to Nauplio, with its three charming Venetian castles, the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae, the ancient healing sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidauros, and the site of ancient Corinth itself.