Aces in the Hole June 12, 2012

Nate Biondi

“It’s time to make the doughnuts” is what I think every morning when I wake up at 4:15 AM.  It took us boys awhile to get ready this morning (us boys being Mike, Ian and me), but once we got moving we were good to go.  In fact, we had quite a bit of energy.  I started the day off singing “it’s getting hot in here” by Nelly and that got me in a good mood.  We spent the morning tagging possible features with caution tape so we could record them later. 

A sea of caution tapes marking potential features.

On previous days I usually did the locus sheet, making sketches, recording points, and describing the feature in general.  Today, I decided to change it up and measure because I feel bad about my illegible handwriting, which would make it difficult for anyone trying to piece the area together. Measuring isn’t as easy as it looks; I almost fell into a cistern twice.  This morning, however, we did find an exciting cave that had several niches cut in it.  People in antiquity made tombs out of pre-existing caves by cutting into the walls to make “rooms.” This cave could have had seven of these rooms.  Judging by the proximity to a modern path, knowledge of the existence of the cave is not in question, but I don’t know if anyone knew it was used as a tomb.  Later on that day Dr. E took a recording of Emily and me to ask us about our experience in Israel.  This is truly the most beautiful place on earth.  The climate is awesome, there is amazing vegetation, and the people are extremely welcoming.  I am very lucky to have a chance to help Norma and Dr.E.  Speaking of Dr E, we started tagging on the same piece of land where you may have seen Stonehenge in a previous posting.  We were not finding much until Dr. E popped up on a hill and found nine tombs. Nine!!!! Some of them were not completed, meaning that the carving wasn’t working out or the stone mason built them incorrectly. I guess it’s just an average day for the Rock Goddess (Dr. E). 

One of nine rock-cut tombs we found today in Area K.

This has been the best experience of my life.  It is not every day that I get to travel to a foreign country with eight of my best friends and other amazing people.  This brings today to a close, as for tomorrow morning… “It’s time to make the doughnuts!”