Wanted: Volunteers

Do you want to do more than just read about the archaeology of the Holy Land? Do the pictures in BAR make you wish you had a trowel and a brush and a chance to expose a pot, a wall or an inscribed sherd that’s been buried for 3,000 years? If you’re in good physical shape, willing to work hard and eager to learn more about Biblical archaeology, you’ll find joining an excavation an exciting way to spend this summer.

In this section, we’ve described some of the digs seeking volunteers next summer. (Others, whose plans are incomplete, will be reported in later issues of BAR.) You can choose an excavation in its first season, or one that has been going on for years. Maybe you prefer to dig at Timnah, an excavation that provides the more luxurious accommodations of a hotel, or perhaps you’ll sacrifice a private bath in order to dig at Biblical Lachish, where the team lives in a tent camp. You can choose to dig down to the earliest level of occupation at Tel Dan, or to unearth and preserve a huge mosaic at Caesarea, or to restore and draw pottery at Michmoret and Tel el Efshar, to name just a few options. Consider the location: If you decide to join the team at Aphek, you’ll be close to Jerusalem. At Ashkelon, you’ll be on the Mediterranean. At Dan you’ll be at a spring that is one of the sources of the Jordan River.