Inside BAR

You don’t have to own a pickaxe. You can leave your buckets at home. But there is one tool you must have if you want to volunteer for a dig: information. And you’ve come to the right place to get it.

The 1990 installment of BAR’s annual special section, “Excavation Opportunities,” presents 22 archaeological digs in Israel and Jordan that seek volunteers. Whether you want to work at a seaside site or deep in the desert, to stay at a hotel or in a tent, to search for Israelites or Philistines, the available digs offer something for everyone. A map and a 13-column chart answer such vital questions as where, when and how much it will cost. Summaries of the history and digging plans for each site provide the information to answer perhaps the most important question: Which site seems most intriguing to you?

Last year we asked readers to submit photos of what the “well-dressed” volunteer wears while digging. The winning picture, reminiscent of a chorus line—excavation style—appears in the sidebar “Ralph Lauren—The Field Is Wide Open!” This contest brought forth not only a consensus about what to wear on a dig, but delightful anecdotes about life in the field at archaeological digs.

An unrobbed grave at Tel Nami, on the Mediterranean coast eight miles south of Haifa, yielded this year’s “Prize Find.” The find is published here for the first time and is described by its discoverer, archaeologist Michal Artzy, in “Pomegranate Scepters and Incense Stand with Pomegranates Found in Priest’s Grave.”