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UCLA archaeology students, faculty excavate site in Israel containing Near Eastern, Egyptian cultural artifacts

Students excavate the main room of an ancient structure in Jaffa, Israel, in 2009. The structure was in use from the third century B.C. to the fifth century A.D.

Courtesy of Aaron Burke

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This article is part of the Daily Bruin’s Graduation Issue 2011 coverage. To view the entire package of articles, columns and multimedia, please visit:

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By Lynn Rice

June 5, 2011 11:52 p.m.

An Egyptian fortress remnant from the late Bronze Age, unearthed in a 1950s excavation in Jaffa by archaeologist Jacob Kaplan.

Courtesy of Aaron Burke

Correction: The original version of this article contained an error. Aaron Burke is the co-director of the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project.

Jaffa is a sleepy seaside town in Israel with a long-running past and an abundance of artifacts.

In July, UCLA students will be traveling there to participate in archeological excavation and research as part of the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project.

While in Jaffa, the students plan to excavate a tell, or a mound of artifacts, that holds relics dating back as far as the early Bronze Age.

“Jaffa is the most important American archaeological site in Israel,” said William Schniedewind, associate director of the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project.

As a significant port on the north-south maritime route between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean Sea, the site’s history has spanned periods of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Arab, Byzantine and Ottoman rule, and pieces from each time period lie buried there.

The heritage project is a partnership between the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA and the Israeli Antiquities Authority.

This year, the group plans to focus on the consumption habits of the ancient Egyptians. A group of more than a dozen people, including undergraduates and graduate students, will participate in the dig.

They will be working in an area of the tell that dates to the period of Egyptian rule and is rich in vessels where foodstuffs were kept, said Aaron Burke, co-director of the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project.

By extracting chemical residues and performing radiocarbon dating on the rubble found inside the vessels, the researchers will determine, for example, what sorts of perfumes and wines the Egyptians favored thousands of years ago.

On a typical day, the group will wake up at 5 a.m. and dig until the early afternoon, when the sun becomes too intense to continue. They will then spend the afternoon analyzing and preparing specimens off-site.

Students will carry hand picks and trowels to the site and use pickaxes or hoes in places where the earth is hard, said Heidi Dodgen, excavations supervisor and Near Eastern archaeology graduate student. Traditional shovels can be destructive to the artifacts, she added.

Dodgen said she and fellow graduate students will work alongside the student volunteers to help and instruct in archeological methods.

“This is really hands-on learning, though, and surprises often come up in the field,” Dodgen said. “At those points, I’ll have to first understand what we’re seeing before I can help them understand what they’re doing.”

Carly Olenick, a second-year Near Eastern languages and cultures student going on the trip, said she was interested in the post-excavation research process as well.

“Beyond digging, I’m excited to get more into the technical aspect of things,” Olenick said of the project’s emphasis on research and analysis of the unearthed artifacts. “That’s more applicable to my future endeavors.”

While there, students will live a 10-minute walk away from the site in a centuries-old building constructed during Jaffa’s Ottoman period. The staff will stay in an inn constructed from Maine timber by Christian revivalists.

On their return, students will be able to participate in the heritage project’s continuing research, Burke said.

Beyond analyzing specimens collected on the dig, the project is responsible for a large number of relics collected by archeologists since the tell’s first excavation in 1947. The first of many planned publications on the findings and collections of the project was released earlier this year, and students may also have the opportunity to work on the next few publications, Burke said.

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