Volunteers write:

"I have been on a fair number of digs, but this is the first in which I dug up finds from within the first hour (fragments of pottery, bone, glass, etc.) all the way up until the last day (a mosaic floor). Maybe you won't find coins or a complete oil lamp. I didn't. But, others at the site will, and just to be on the site gazing at a special artifact minutes after being unearthed is a remarkable feeling in itself. This is a real city-site. History is still buried here. You won't spend fruitless hours digging test pits in hopes of striking something.
An added plus is that the Tiberias digs take place in the pleasant weather of Spring and Fall, not in the stifling Summer heat so typical of most Mediterranean Digs."

Scott McRae
USA
 

A Tiberian Hoard

Lush greenery covers the hills of northern Israel at this time of year. Around Tiberius the verdant slopes look down on the sleepy city as it girds itself for the coming tourist season. As usual, some people have come a little early. The archaeologists are back in town. On the outskirts actually. That’s where the old city is. It was abandoned when the Crusaders destroyed the place and set up a new town further up the coast. That’s why there’s so much to dig around here. It’s all been left underground, untouched for nine hundred years.
This week they found a hoard of silver coins, hidden under the ground in a charming pot.
Apart from some slight damage to the pot, this will make a fine exhibit in a museum. Which will attract yet more school trips and guided tours. They all get shown around the site: a jumble of stone walls - Fatimid, Abbasid, Byzantine, Roman and Jewish (the bits and pieces end up in boxes at the university’s archaeology department). Here and there groups of volunteers struggle with buckets and spades. The professionals supervise from a distance, encouraging the amateurs with patient smiles at every shard of pottery they turn up. Bedouin from the north work on their own section, at a pace that makes the rest of the excavators look like they’re playing with sand at the beach. The sun beats down and a breeze catches the water on Lake Kinneret, making it glisten softly.
Then suddenly there’s a rush as news of the hoard spreads. Everyone runs to see what the fuss is about. The professor offers an impromptu lecture to the assembled crowd and magically we’re transported back to a distant past as a man, about to lose all he has, hides a few coins in his shop, which he’ll never see again.

-The Jewish Press, Sammy Herman (Volunteer March 2006).
 

I have eaten lunch a mile underground in a tin and zinc mine in the Outback of Australia;
I have traveled for five weeks around the perimeter of the USA in a greyhound bus; I have wandered through the beauty of the temples and gardens of Kyoto in Japan; but the best holiday I have ever spent was at the Tiberias Excavation in November 2005.

I have been to Israel before but I had never been on an archaeological dig and I was apprehensive about whether I'd enjoy it. I needn't have worried! Nothing beats the thrill of finding a 2nd century coin which you are the first person to touch since its owner lost it 1800 years ago in the crevice between two paving stones.

Every day was exhilarating and exciting as well as being physically invigorating and packed with learning. The professionals from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem were generous with their knowledge and time, during both the excavation hours and the evening lectures. Once a week Professor Hirschfeld took us to a nearby place he had excavated, and his guided tours could only been bettered by the original architects themselves.

I loved the idyllic location on the edge of the sea of Galilee, the delicious kosher meals on site, the comfortable Hotel Aviv, the interesting volunteers who came from all over the English - speaking world and, above all, the satisfaction of being part of an important historical enterprise in the land of Israel. The worst thing was leaving to go home. I've already booked my flight from New Zealand for the October/November excavation season. See you there!

Love Lorraine
(Lorraine Isaacs, volunteer in the November 2005 season)