Two days of excavating in Hezekiah's Tunnel was a treat!
We were working in two new (well, actually very old, but not known until
recently) tunnels that seem to be bypass tunnels that were built in order to
help divert water when Hezekiah's Tunnel was constructed. We made a lot
of progress. As is apparent below, only a few people were actually
digging; the rest were needed to bucket the debris out of the tunnel (yes, we
were standing in water most of the time!) and outside. We rotated every 15
minutes to give everyone a chance to dig and to keep the line moving.

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Give Preston a pick and a tunnel to excavate
and he'll scare any archaeologist half to death! |
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Jacquelyn carries her buckets through the funnel of the
tunnel. |
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Charissa takes a glance backward. |
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Josh looks like he's working out; Luke and Carol know when
it's best to stand back! |
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Jake struggles with the 5-lb mostly empty
sandbag, but he eventually got it. |
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Known to be distantly related to Vanna White, Seth proudly
displays his bucket of dirt. |
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It was Leo's 24th birthday and it wasn't
complete until he had a candle on top of his birthday "mudcake." |
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Sarah peeks into of one of the excavation
tunnels. |
"Dr." Preston Sprinkle reported on the excavations the
following day: "after a long period of examination, I placed the
dirt somewhere in the Iron I Age, approximately 200 years before
Hezekiah....the water was a little easier to date. It was clearly
from the Byzantine period due to the temperature and the
density...."
Quite obviously, it is better for Preston to be dating girls than the
ancient remains. |
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