A photo story: Excavating a fifth century synagogue
A photo story: Excavating a fifth century synagogue
Photo journalism student Will Melfi was one of 14 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students who traveled to Huqoq, Israel, to document in photos the excavation of a fifth century synagogue.
Students unload a truck at the Huqoq Excavation Site. After leaving promptly at 4:30 in the morning, they trek more than a mile to the site. An archeological student from Brigham Young University sets up equipment in the dark. Work begins early to beat the heat of the day. Jocelyn Burney, dig director Jodi Magness and assistant director Shua Kisilevitz confer on the site.Students used hoes and pickaxes to clear away soil.Bryan Kohn of UNC-Chapel Hill does some finer digging. As excavators dig deeper, they must be careful not to accidentally destroy any part of the synagogue.Securing one of the tarps that keep the sun off the excavation site. Covers such as these are rare on archaeological sites.Workers remove a large stone from the site.Once the large stones are carried out of the excavated site by hand, the heavy machinery takes over.Karen Britt, mosaics specialist, surveys a recently uncovered mosaic. Mosaics were an unexpected discovery in the early days of the dig, and news ones continue to be uncovered.Digging deeper in an unexplored area.Buckets of dirt from the excavation pile up as student sift through them, looking for ancient pieces of the synagogue.Students sift through the dirt looking for pieces of pottery, bone or mosaic stone.Dumping dirt into wheelbarrows to haul off the site.The dirt is carted off the site. It will come back onto the site when the excavation is recovered.At the end of the day, the work areas are cleaned and dusted.
