Getting Caught Up

Hello everyone. Sorry for not posting for a while, I have been distracted and busy and haven't had the time or the internet connection to write a new blog post. So now I am going to get everyone caught up since last Wednesday. We have done quite a lot and I will try to talk about everything, but I might miss something.

Okay, starting with last Thursday, while we were still in Jerusalem. Thursday morning we went to the Rockefeller Museum again. We started with a tour and explanation of the archives. They hold every document about excavations and antiquity sites in Israel. They also hold all the documents that have survived since the Ottoman Period and British Mandate about ancient or important sites, including maps and descriptions dating back to the 18th century. We learned about how they conserve the papers and books, and how they store everything. After the archives we had a tour of the building, learning about the building's history as well as learning about the gallery and the artifacts. Then we went into the basement and looked around the storage rooms. They were filled with pottery, ossuaries, and other artifacts that aren't quite good enough for the exhibition. It kind of reminded me of Indiana Jones, with the wooden boxes stacked to the ceiling. After the Rockefeller Museum (and lunch) we went to the Israel Museum to get a private showing of the Dead Sea Scrolls Lab. This is where they do all the restoration and conservation work of the Dead Sea Scrolls. We saw several fragments that are not on display to the public, and saw the hi-tech camera developed by NASA to photograph objects across a large portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. It was really cool to go behind the scenes where they work. The one complaint I had was that we were joined by a group of students from Penn State University who were here for their spring break. I like our small group of six. It makes our lectures and tours more personal, as well as just making it easier to see and hear what is being discussed. It was hard at some points to see the scrolls that were being displayed for us because our group had tripled in size. Nevertheless it was a good experience. After seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls we had some time to walk around the Israel Museum.

Friday and Saturday were the weekend, so we all did different things. I spent the time walking in and around the Old City. I did a lot of tourist things, from seeing the Tower of David to walking through the Kidron Valley beneath the Mount of Olives. I did a lot of walking and a lot of sight-seeing. If you want to know exactly what I did over these days feel free to ask, but it's not important for the post so I will save time by not writing it. Saturday night there was a silent disco Purim party at the hostel. I dressed up as a hippie-flower. I wore a long blond wig, oversize purple shutter glasses, and a red flower on my back. I looked pretty ridiculous. The party was fun and a good break from everything we have been doing. It was nice to stay up really late. We had Sunday off because it was Purim, but we had to catch our bus in the morning to take us back to Akko. When we got back we just relaxed and got settled again.

Monday we went to Caesarea and worked on  mosaics in situ. We were filling in holes with lime mortar where the mosaics had crumbled away in the Byzantine Church (built on top of Herod's Temple of Augustus) It was really interesting to do work filling in mosaics. Because the work was right in the middle of the tourist area there were people walking right by us while we worked, asking us questions about who we were and what we were doing. I felt like a tourist attraction, just like the ruins.

Today we finally went to the International Conservation Center. We got a tour of the building, a little of its history, and a little reception to "celebrate" the Center being open again. We then had lectures by the expert in mosaics. He was the boss of the mosaics lab that we went to in Jerusalem last week. Today he gave lectures about lime mortar, mosaic construction, and mosaic conservation. In the evening we had another Hebrew lesson, in which I did nothing. I listened to the teacher while she was helping everyone else, and occasionally I chimed in to help. It wasn't a very exciting day.