Independence Day passed with little notice here at Sussita. Another beautiful day here as I sit on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and try to ignore the pain in my lower back. The Squares. E8: Not much to tell except many boulders moved and still no street. Those guys sure worked hard, and they worked on filling up their hole and leveling their square. Robert The Impaler was a complete stud today with the pick, they don't ordain them like they used to apparently. A5: This square has walls coming out the wazoo. Today they worked at cleaning the walls and digging deeper in the two northern quadrants.
F2: These folks removed the walkway around the church and found a column (which was a beast to move let me tell you). They also found what appears to be a femur of a cow.
Pottery washing today was quick, thanks God, and everyones doing ok here. tomorrow we pack up to go to Jerusalem where Bob will be leaving us and we will be getting some more folks.
Thats all I got for today, and to quote a childhood hero of mine, sssooo long, folks!
kevin

Another day 4 AM alarm, and another day of digging. Today was day number 2 in our month long dig. The weather was not bad, but not as nice as the first day. The early morning brought moving heavy stones from the eastern wall of the church. The “Arny Net” was put to good use throughout the day today moving heavy stones. We did the nasty work early in the morning before it got too hot.
Square A5 began their dig day by moving some more heavy stones from atop their work site. Kevin Fitzgerald was a primary stone mover being the youngest and strongest member of that square’s team. After digging down only 1/2 meter the team found a couple of mysterious walls. The excavation and careful troweling around the walls began at their discovery.
Our team in Square E8 began the day with the goal to hit the street (Cardo 2N). That particular goal was never reached…due to heavy randomly placed stones just below the surface. The Arny Net was our most useful tool but the work of digging the stones out was still pretty rough. Dr. Schuler along with Andrea Chandler and Jess Tewes took some measurements and estimate that we have 20-40 cm of digging to get down to the street level. That is what we hope to do tomorrow.
The F2 square prided themselves in being able to keep a perfectly level square and had no problem boasting about such a feat. The F2 team found what appears to be stairs and they reached what appears to be the floor of their square because it is at about the same level as the rest of the church. They had the tedious task of sweeping the large amount of dust and dirt off of the floor. This task was performed by Bob Gehrke.
After all the digging was done the team had the immense please of washing off pottery (let’s just say if I was allergic to pottery it wouldn’t be the worst thing).
Audios Amigos…
Matt

All I have to say is four o'clock in the morning is rough. Like really rough. Other then the insanely early morning that I'll have to get used to, day one on the dig went really well. Our first task this morning after riding the bus up and making the quasi-short hike up to the site was taking care of the weeds and general clean up around the site. Some people were working outside the church, and some people were working inside cleaning up the floors and walls. Susan was working with the Aussies taking special care working around the mosaic floor. Around 8 o'clock we had an astounding breakfast (was almost the same as our dinner tonight) with french toast amazingly awful instant coffee. After breakfast we started opening up squares. E8 was the first to put up shade, and their aim is to find the main road leading up to the church. The E8 team was headed today by Mark-the-freelance-journalist, and they dug down about two feet. They found a lot of pottery shards, which I'm sure we will all get the pleasure of cleaning tomorrow. The F2 peoples are hoping to eventually find a wall or a small staircase. After digging down about 20.657 cm they think it might be a staircase, though admittedly they have no idea whats going on. Perhaps the good Dr. will help them figure out whats down there in the days to come. They did uncover some cool glass pieces, as well as an entire handle of pot or something. Up in A5, after the tractor pulled a lot of stuff off we moved big rocks. After we moved a lot of big rocks, we kept on moving big rocks. And kept going. So we got that going for us. A5 is the high point of the site, and potentially has a road running under it, like 2 meters under it. Thats a lot of dirt, but we'll keep working. Thats what went down today, so we'll be back at it tomorrow! So long folks, and thanks for all the fish. Your Bro in Christ, Kevin

The team is in the final week before the dig. Email messages fly with ideas and questions. News from the Middle East flutters up butterflies. But in a week we will be on the way.
The blog you are reading will be the repository for for daily updates from the dig. Three archaeology students — Jon, Matt, and Kevin — will share duties at keeping you posted. But for the "real dirt" on the dig, check out the other blogs. Students will give personal impressions. Our dig's most experienced participant (Marc Hequet) will write for us and BAR. And two former diggers will offer a stateside perspective.
I invite you to follow the adventure!