Indiana Jones and the Temple of Beating a Dead Horse

I think the most important thing to realize about modern day archeology is that Indiana Jones is practically a documentary for about 50% of what we do. I personally have beaten scores of Nazis and recovered several priceless artifacts from the clutches of countless...

Archaeology?

In my experience, archaeology is a mixture of many professions uncovering and crafting a deeper understanding of a culture at different periods of time. It is a process of continuously getting down and dirty in order to find out what something may be. At the same time...

So much dirt

First of all, we don’t fight nazis on a regular basis. Nor have I ever seen anyone melt from the Arc of the Covenant. In reality, it’s a whole lot less glamourous. Indy is far too clean to be working on a dig. We spend all day scraping though dirt and...

Just Keep Digging

There aren’t many similarities between Indiana Jones and me, and that’s probably a good thing. His experiences with archaeology are much different than my own. Even though I work in a pit, I haven’t had any snakes yet. Although I do wear a hat, it’s not nearly as cool...

There’s always another question to be answered

At first glance, I will admit that the archaeology which we practice on a day to day basis at Antiochia may seem a bit mundane. After all, digging up dirt in warm weather is probably not what most would call their “ideal summer”. A further lack of understanding due to...

So, You Worked on an Archaeological Dig in Turkey?

I have already been asked the question, “what are you going to be doing there?” too many times to count. My answers before coming on the trip are nothing like they will be when I return because I honestly didn’t know much about archaeology. It was a hard question to...

Jokes Are Great

There are plenty of people in the world who do not understand the truth about archaeology. Pretty much everyone I’ve told that I was doing this made an Indiana Jones joke, and to be frank, not all of them were unfunny or gross misconceptions about archaeology....

I Like History!!!

It’s crazy to think that I’ve only been here a week because of how much I now know about myself and have grown in this short period of time. One of the biggest things that I’ve learned is that I can do this. I can go to a new country with people I don’t know very...

My Second Blog Post

        80-something-degrees is a nice temperature especially after some scorching 100 degree afternoons. Now besides my new found ability to roast in the sun slowly, I have discovered — or more like rediscovered — the joy of the slower and more tedious kind of...