Melanie Miller ('12) at the First Division Museum

Life the year after graduation is filled with great expectations as well as disappointments, and several curveballs. My summer after graduation started out exactly as I wanted: excavating several ancient Maya sites in Belize and gallivanting across Central and North America. Then I returned from my post-graduation honeymoon and had a long-delayed appointment with reality. I was near broke, living at home, and frantically searching for an archaeology-related job to no avail. Practicality arising from a desperate need for cash flow forced me to widen my job-search net landing me in the world of retail. After being offered positions in everything from hardware to eye-care to electronics, I finally ended up as a sales consultant for cell phones at Best Buy Mobile. Many of you who know me will find great irony in this: the girl with the brick flip phone who just got texting this past summer and is one of the least tech-savvy people when it comes to smartphones now makes much of her living from selling phones.

I still wanted to do something that was archaeology or museum related so I decided that if no paid positions were open, then volunteering was the best avenue. I quickly discovered that unlike requests for paying jobs, people rarely turn down the offer of free labor and respond to your inquiries much faster. I chose to volunteer at a local war museum, the First Division Museum at Cantigny Park, where I helped in the digitization of hundreds of original documents and artifacts from WWI to the Iraq War. After volunteering over 50 hours in four months’ time, the museum encouraged me to apply for a paid internship position in the archives department. This was rather unexpected, but it proves that just getting your foot in the door can lead to greater opportunities. I have been working as an intern since February and am in charge of cataloguing and reorganizing thousands of documents and artifacts from a donation that fills 25 teetering banker’s boxes. The challenge I face now is balancing three jobs, as I still work at Best Buy and consistently babysit, which makes for a few twelve-hour work days and work weeks of nearly 60 hours. I am also studying for the GRE, which I am set to take next month. The best advice I can give on that is to take the GRE as early as possible so it is not looming over you!

Although my life mostly consists of work, study, and sleep when there is time, I can already see the benefits of my hard work. Clearly, the internship is one of them, but the money I saved from working three jobs is allowing me the opportunity to participate in another archaeological dig this summer, the Jezreel Expedition. This fall I will apply to grad schools for Mesoamerican archaeology while continuing to work. In short, while life after graduation may find you living back at home with a non-archaeology-related job, do not worry or give up. Instead, concentrate on preparing for grad school, save the money you earn for something to strengthen your archaeology resume such as field schools or conferences, and stay involved in something archaeology related, whether it is a class or volunteering, to help prevent you from losing focus or desire to go back to school for archaeology. And for those moments when you feel discouraged, sit back, drink a root beer, and watch the fourth Indiana Jones movie to reinvigorate your fervor to educate the public that aliens have nothing to do with archaeology and to put on your fedora once again.

Less than a year after graduation: Kelly Goodner at the Explorium

It’s hard to believe that I graduated college less than a year ago. I decided to take a year off between undergrad and grad school and I am really glad that I did. After graduation I was able to relax for a few weeks and prepare for my trip to Israel to participate in the Jezreel Expedition (I recommend this to all current and prospective UE students!). I also spent considerable time sending out resumes and cover letters in hopes of securing a job when I returned from Israel and my side trip to Jordan.

When I returned to the States, I was fortunate enough to get a job interview with a local children’s museum - the Explorium of Lexington - and was offered a position in visitor’s services. My job involves working with visitors of all ages as well as cleaning and maintaining the museum. During the fall of 2012, I also had the opportunity to complete an internship with the program director at the museum. This allowed me to help plan the museum’s weekly programs. It also gave me the opportunity to design an archaeology-themed scavenger hunt and alter the museum’s “Dino Dig” exhibit and turn it into an “Archo Dig” exhibit for National Archaeology Day.

As far as my future goes, I am returning to Israel this summer to again take part in the Jezreel Expedition, which I am really excited about. I also plan to travel to a few places in Europe after the field season is over. In the fall I will be attending graduate school to complete a master’s degree in museum studies. The education and experiences I received at the University of Evansville have prepared me for both the real world and graduate school.

Less Than One Year After Graduation: Emily Mella at American University

Hello UE Archaeology!  I graduated in May 2012 and spent the month of June in Israel as part of the Jezreel Expedition, which was a great experience.  We surveyed for two weeks, excavated for a week, and then spent another 12 days traveling through Israel and Jordan.  It was exhausting, but a fabulous way to spend a summer.  After getting back to the US, I picked up and moved to Washington DC to start graduate school.  I am pursuing my MA in International Affairs from American University and with a focus in the Middle East.  The first few months were a weird transition for me – I was determined to find a job that wasn’t waiting tables or working at Starbucks, but couldn’t find one and settled for an unpaid internship instead.  I got a position archiving for an NGO called the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, which focuses on dialogue and conflict resolution.  My job was to go through their old program files, organize the documents, and write a project report reviewing each one.  The work was a bit boring, but I got to attend their staff meetings and interview the organization’s founder, a former US Ambassador, about the projects I was working on. 

This semester, I am doing another internship (also unpaid) for an organization called the Partnership for Global Security.  As their nuclear research intern, my job has been to gather and analyze data regarding civil nuclear programs all over the world.  My final product will be a report about the future of the civil nuclear industry for the organization.  In addition to my internships, I have been taking Arabic classes, which have been really interesting.  Living in DC is fun – I had a bit of culture shock being on the east coast (I’m from Texas originally), but the city is beautiful.  I never get less excited to see the national monuments and still haven’t explored all the city’s museums.  Plus, going to the presidential inauguration was really cool, even though it was freezing!   My plan for the summer is to try to get a job of some sort (even if it is waiting tables) and to volunteer somewhere, like the National Children’s Museum.  With a little more museum experience, I would really like to get a job designing educational programs at a museum after I graduate.

Students help publicize Jezreel 2013

On Friday January 18, UE archaeology and art history students and friends came out to Ridgway to publicize the 2013 Jezreel Expedition.

The 2013 season of excavations at Jezreel, Israel, is scheduled for May 19 - June 15. Undergraduate students can earn three 300-level credits from UE and graduate students can earn three credits from the University of Haifa for participating in this four-week field school. The first deadline for applications is January 25. Please contact je55@evansville.edu for more information!

Jezreel Expedition featured on local public radio

UE Associate Professor of Archaeology and Co-Director of the Jezreel Expedition, Jennie Ebeling, was interviewed by Micah Schweizer on WNIN's The Trend on July 13, 2012.  Click here to listen to the interview (it's about halfway through the program).

Jezreel Expedition - June 15, 2012

By Kelly Goodner

One of many rock-cut tombs discovered by the Jezreel Expedition.

Waking up at 4:10 this morning was as difficult as ever but of course we all did it. As we stumbled into the cars for the short trip to the slopes of the area around the tel, the realization that this was our final day of survey for the Jezreel Expedition set in. While the work was tiring and occasionally stressful my experience working with the team members and other students has been great.  Actually doing archaeology is such a different experience than sitting in a classroom or studying at a desk.  Exploring caves and cisterns, finding pottery and tombs: these are experiences that I will never forget and I am grateful that I got the opportunity to participate in the first season at Jezreel. I can’t wait to learn about the future work Norma, Jennie and the rest of the team will accomplish here!

Cooling off in Ein Yizreel (the spring) after a very hot morning.

Aces in the Hole June 14, 2012

By Emily Mella

While all of us on the trip are very interested in archaeology, sometimes some of our favorite moments have nothing to do with the discipline. Today's highlights for me were pancakes and pomegranates. We began the morning dragging a little, but perked up after Dr. Ebeling promised pancakes to the student who found the most interesting feature as we were tagging. Eventually we learned that the rumors about pancake Thursdays at the kibbutz were true and that we were all going to participate. We were excited to eat something different from our usual breakfast fare, and probably put a little too much syrup on our pancakes because we were a bit loopy after breakfast. We had been working for awhile when I discovered that some of the girls had been putting pomegranates into my backpack without my noticing, and the game began. We were working near a pomegranate tree and eventually the goal was to get a pomegranate into every adult's backpack without them noticing. It was a lot of fun and a nice way to distract ourselves from the heat. We recorded many cisterns today, as well as a few interesting tombs. Today was a very nice and lighthearted second-to-last day at Jezreel!

One of the 90+ cisterns that dot greater Jezreel.

Jezreel Expedition June 13, 2012

By Megan Anderson

Our spirits were high as we set out in the dark morning hours. We all piled into the cars and headed out to the site. We spent a very interesting day recording the old village walls which dotted the landscape, but what made today especially exciting was that Emma was the first to finally see one of the snakes that live in the undergrowth. Apparently more afraid of her than she was of it, the snake slithered away…hopefully never to be seen again.

Recording walls from the village.

That afternoon, instead of returning to the field, we had the opportunity to visit Tel Megiddo, or biblical Armageddon, where we joined members of the Tel Aviv University’s Board of Governors from Canada for a tour. Dr. Norma Franklin, who was a member of the Megiddo team for 19 years, explained the site and its significance. It was very interesting to hear how interpretations of the site have changed over the years as new evidence is uncovered. To end our tour we took 180 steps down into the water system, which was not only impressive, but more importantly on a hot day—cool.  The spring there is still active and we stood over a small pool of water deep inside the bedrock, where a tiny frog was entertaining himself by watching tourists.

Ending our day we came back to the kibbutz for dinner, and like the old ladies we are fast becoming, we were all sound asleep by 9:30pm.

Megan found this pot on the surface during survey.

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!”

Jezreel Expedition blog June 11, 2012

Michael Koletsos

Today was a day that would test the patience of even the most experienced archaeologist.  We arrived at the site just before 5am, but could tell very quickly just how warm it would be throughout the day.  The humidity was so incredibly high that it felt like our clothes would never dry from our perspiration.  By 6:30am everyone was ready for a break.  We continued to make many discoveries from our surveying, but by 10am it was clear that we could not work anymore.  Most of us were still tired from our weekend excursion to Jerusalem.  So we headed back to the kibbutz, cleaned up, and had lunch.  People seemed to relax as we traveled to the University of Haifa to visit the Zinman Institute of Archaeology, which is sponsoring the project along with the University of Evansville.  Our group met a number of friendly archaeologists who gave us a tour around their facilities.  It was quite an enjoyable experience for us all.  We even explored the Hecht Museum located on the University’s campus, which was filled with a diverse collection of artifacts from many areas of the world.  I enjoyed the organization of the collection and the displays.  One of the most interesting displays for me involved ancient toys and game boards, since they were similar to items many of us had as children.  Looking forward to our work tomorrow!

Dr. Michael Eisenberg of the Zinman Institute explains a display of Heracles/Hippos at the University of Haifa.

June 8, 2012 Report from Jezreel

Hilda Torres

Our work this morning was an interesting start to the day. We were running a little late, but we were able to catch up with the tags that we had not finished yesterday. My team, “Jezebel’s Revenge,” was able to find many different rooms that we originally thought were disconnected walls. The other team, Willendorf Warriors, ended up finding more dead cows today. They have such great luck with finding dead cows. My team also measured plenty of different caves. I ended up going into two caves today and there were some hidden treasures in them.

In the first cave that I went inside by myself, I found an old horse shoe. The second cave that I entered with Mike Koletsos had a nice jar handle attached to part of a vessel. Mike was the one who spotted this wonderful piece of pottery that could have belonged to the villagers from the area. Another great discovery I made today consisted of small chunks of tesserae that belonged to a floor. Sadly, I was not able to find the floor from which these pieces of tesserae came, but now we know that there are plenty of floors to uncover.

June 7, 2012 Aces in the Hole

Sarah Carlton

Sarah and Mike measure a wall "hidden" in the undergrowth.

Thursday proved to be an interesting day in most every regard. Today we finally split up into two groups in order to “bag ‘em and tag ‘em” more efficiently; what I mean is we went through loci much more quickly. Sadly, though, I wore my shorter pants in the morning and nearly died due to the evil, prickly plants. In the afternoon we continued our morning’s work of recording features, and, lo and behold, another dead cow was found! The poor beastie had fallen into a cave of sorts and died inside. L My team found several caves with wall enclosures, and Megan giddily explored them all. All in all the survey of the site is running along smoothly. Also, team Willendwarf Warriors (pronounced  Villaindwarf Warriors) are much, much better than team Jezebel’s Revenge – just sayin’.

Nate and Megan recording the GPS coordinates of a feature.

June 6, 2012 Aces in the Hole

Kelly Goodner

Surveying through very tall weeds in the early morning hours.

So 4:30 am in Israel comes early but not bright. Waking up when it’s still dark outside is always hard but hey I’m in Israel so it’s worth it.  Instead of talking about the survey, I am going to talk about the field trip we took in the afternoon.  Rather than returning to the field on Wednesday afternoon we took a field trip further North to Tel Hazor where Dr. E  picked up ground stone tools that she plans on doing further research with.  Our first stop was Tel Hazor where we were given a tour by Dr. E.  FYI the tel is bottle shaped; yes Mom I did learn something in college!  The highlight of the tour was the water system the residents of the tel built for retrieving water in times of siege.  This was the highlight for two reasons: it was impressively sized as well as much cooler then standing out in the hot sun on the tel.  For lunch Dr. E treated us to falafel, a tasty mix of fried chick peas and salad goodies stuffed into a pita.  On our way back to the kibbutz we stopped at the Mount of Beatitudes on the Sea of Galilee, which includes a church and grounds with spectacular views of the sea and surrounding areas.  We then stopped at the Israeli baptism spot on the Jordan River. It was a beautiful area and we got to see two cute little otter-like creatures. The final stop on our field trip was a parking lot with a great view of Tel Bet Shean.  We then returned to the kibbutz for dinner exhausted and hungry. 

Jezreel Expedition blog June 5, 2012

By Emma Dunleavy

…and on the third day we began our survey near the spring of Jezreel. We trampled, traversed, and tripped our way through grass, weeds, and plants taller than our heads. Surprisingly, we were able to discover a path in the undergrowth which might have been used in the 20^th century. After our heroic stamping through the bush we surveyed a cleared open field and collected fragments of pottery, flint and basalt. We found many fragments of pottery dating from the Early Bronze Age to the Byzantine period. In the late afternoon session we returned to Jezreel to survey a large remaining section of the eastern slope. Many of us felt like mountain goats while surveying, and I believe a few bleats could be heard coming from our team. The finds this afternoon were among the most interesting yet: a large olive or wine press cut into the rock as well as an unfinished sarcophagus still in a quarry.

Surveying on the terrace near the spring in the morning.

Aces in the Hole June 4, 2012

Jezreel Expedition Blog Entry June 4, 2012 by Emily Mella

Today was our second day of surveying, and I was in charge of filling out locus sheets for the morning. While my drawing skills leave something to be desired, I enjoyed filling out the forms and making sure that we documented each feature that we came upon. After we recorded some easily identifiable features, we plunged into an area of very thick brush and cacti to see what we could find. Some areas were full of prickles and difficult to cross, but we were able to uncover some interesting things, including two mosaic floors, lots of evidence of quarrying, and channels cut into the bedrock. After breakfast, we took a tour of the tel and enjoyed seeing the remains of the tower and examining the many pottery sherds that we found on the surface.

Visiting "Jezebel's Tower" on the tel.

This afternoon we returned to the lower area of the hillside and came across a dead cow that had inexplicably gone unnoticed the day before - most of us didn't even notice it until we were almost on top of it. We documented quite a few caves and several cup marks cut into the rock, as well as more evidence of quarrying. We surveyed the other half of the field, and Sarah and I got stuck on an overhang while looking at a neat cave. The two of us ended up having to backtrack and take the long way back to the others. After more measuring and documenting (I recorded GPS coordinates this afternoon), Mike and I went searching for our missing brush, which somehow ended up near the dead cow. Overall, it was another hot, tiring, itchy, interesting, sunny, eventful, and successful day!

Jezreel Expedition 2012 Blog: "Aces in the Hole"

Each of the eight students participating in the 2012 season of the Jezreel Expedition will post a blog entry detailing work at the site each day.

June 3, 2012 by Megan Anderson

We were up bright and early for our first day to meet the dawn as it rose over Jezreel.  Our fearless leaders Dr. Jennie Ebeling and Dr. Norma Franklin handed out jobs and clipboards and we began our survey of Area L, which is east of the tel.  We found amazing features, including several of the many cisterns that dot the landscape and several other rock cut features.  At 10:00 am, we took a long break for breakfast and enjoyed delicious Israeli fare compliments of Kibbutz Yizreel.  After our rest we took to the field again.  Nate Biondi and Sarah Carlton kept everything organized by taking detailed field notes and Emma Dunleavy and Mike Koletsos documented the finds with cameras (assisted by Emily Mella and Kelly Goodner).  When it came time to survey the lower portion of Area L later in the afternoon, we continued in true Indiana Jones fashion as we fearlessly rolled under a barbed wire fence to reach the pasture beyond.  There we were not disappointed, as we found many more features including a multi-chamber tomb located by Emma Dunleavy which we were able to enter.  Hilda Torres scaled its side to take measurements and Megan Anderson used a GPS to record its position.  All in all our first day in the field was both very exciting and productive, helping us to gain a better understanding of the site of Jezreel.

Stonehenge at Jezreel? No, it's modern art.