Two words: Longest day EVER...f*** thats three words. So, waking up at 4 in the morning is not as bad as it sounds when you are jet lagged, but thinking about tomorrow, when I am already tired from a full day of hard labor is frightening. The warm Israeli air was coming in through the window all night, and even though the temperature during the day can get up to 100 degrees, it is very cool at night, getting down to the mid 60s. Perfect. The sun did not rise until around 7 AM and until then we had perfectly cool weather to be cleaning the site. The first order of business was to clean off the grass from the area, which involved LOTS of pick axes and trowels--little known fact: grass can get pretty stubborn in the desert and takes a pick axes and lots of muscle to get it to come up.

After a few hours of working hard we went to breakfast at 8AM, which felt more like lunch than anything else. Honestly, I don't know what to do with myself waking up this early. I am all messed up. After breakfast/lunch we went back to work to try and put up the shade (which is COMPLETELY necassary, it started to get VERY hot around 10AM) which is one of the most complicated processes ever known to man. Not only is area Q one of the largest areas, but it is at the top of the tel and has some wind issues. At the end of the day, after continued weeding, driving of steaks and poles we still have not finished putting up the shade. Additionally, we need to string the squares (for those who are not archaeologically oriented, we dig by the Kenyon Wheeler method where there are squares of 5 by 5 meters and a meter balk (wall between all the squares) that allow us to see the stratigraphy and make sure that we know what layer we are in. I will not bore those not interested in the history of Megiddo, but it has had 34 battles, and is the place where before 1948, the last king of Judah fell (Josiah) and in the book of Revelations claimed to be the place of the end of all days (and where the name Armageddon comes from).

Tomorrow we do it all over again, but it will be awesome. We had drinks tonight and mingled and got to know each other better, there are a lot of people from different disciplines and backgrounds that all have their own stories about how they decided to dig here. Some are veterans of Megiddo, some have dug in Egypt and Turkey and a thousand other cool places. I have a lot of catching up to do, but for now I think it is time for bed.