Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Dan and BAS



The Biblical Archaeolical Society has been revamping their website over the last months. Pretty slick.

One of the latest features is a "War Update", where various field supervisors have written up how their digs have been affected by the Israel-Lebanon conflict.

Here is part of what David Ilan, who was our supervisor at Tel Dan, says:
Our expedition was closed down Friday July 14th. We had planned to finish digging Friday July 21st.

Things began to go wrong late Wednesday morning, July 12th, when an Israeli howitzer battery located nearby began firing in the direction of Lebanon. This is not a new experience for Tel Dan veterans—artillery fire from Israeli artillery is a fairly frequent occurrence in the area and can usually can be attributed to maneuvers or single warning shots aimed far away from the site (a 155 mm howitzer has a range of 12 miles).

This time however, the shelling was continuous. Several volunteers began to worry.


You should read the rest here. You'll need to scroll down about halfway down the page to the July 24 entry. The rest of the entries make an interesting read about what happens when archaeology and current politics collide.

The above photo was taken July 12 from the lookout at Nimrod's Fortress. On the right is our tour bus, two Israeli humvess to the left (one out of frame) with smoke rising from Lebanon in the middle.

posted by Peter at 11:28 PM
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