2009

I promised more information about our Jerusalem trip from last weekend. A group of us walked to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after dinner to watch the door closing. Six different Christian groups have rights in the church (Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Latin, aka, Roman Catholic, Syrian, and Coptic, and Ethiopian), but they can’t agree on who should have the key. For the last 200 years, the key has been held by the same Muslim family. This guy is obviously used to a crowd watching him; and one can tell I’m not the only person there with a camera—count the number of flashes!

Colleen and friend Tina arrived on Wednesday of week one, but Tina was sick, and Colleen, a first time volunteer, stayed on the kibbutz to care for Tina and only had one week to dig. On Sunday of week two, Colleen’s first dig day, she worked with John, Carl, and me on E5 west (on the west side of the church complex—at the bottom of the aerial photo on the main web site). On Monday we moved to the east side of the complex to open a new square, ZZ1. As an experienced digger at opening squares (this was my 4th time), I KNEW there would be nothing to find or save (including pottery shards on the first day. Imagine my surprise when Colleen unearthed this!





I don’t have a picture from Tuesday, but here’s how far we got by the end of the day Wednesday. We all took turns sitting on “Colleen’s column”:





By the end of the week (Thursday), we had uncovered enough to see the second column drum, a sure sign that this column is resting on the floor! Colleen’s feet are dangling freely!





Here she is hugging her column at the end of the week. In spite of a rocky start to her time on the dig, Colleen had a great time on the dig!

Jennifer (from the Concordia, Irvine group) found this cross last week on the west side of the church complex. Kristina, small finds coordinator, worked with Ewa and Julia of the Polish team to clean the cross. It is some kind of metal alloy which may include gold. As Julia put it, we find many things used by people in the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries. But someone wore this precious piece of jewelry. It is a moving experience to touch and handle this intimate artifact that points to the foolishness of the cross at the center of the Christian faith.

What’s so great about this picture? Arny is posing with a very special tool of Glenn’s, who arrives next week. In an email to me on June 28, Glenn wrote:
“Hi Rhoda,
Yes that time for departure [to the airport] should be okay….
By the way I gave permission to Arny to use the turrea that I have been using the past 6 years.
Glenn”
Safe travels, Glenn!

Rhoda already gave you details of the Jerusalem trip, so I will just leave you with this video.  This is a small part of the group singing at St. Anne’s Church before walking the Via Delarosa.  It is a beautiful place and acoustically one of the best places to sing I have ever been in – hopefully you will get at least a small sense of that from this video.