Time Sifters Archaeology Society Newsletter August 2020

AUGUST-2020 PRESERVATION  EDUCATION  RESEARCH  INSPIRE Dear Member: On July 19th we continued our “Summer Series: Crusaders in the Holy Land” presented by Dr. Steven Derfler on ZOOM. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. On August 19th at 6:00 PM, we will continue the series with the third of three lectures. This one will be “Jerusalem: The Heart and Soul of the Kingdom of the Crusaders”. Please join us. The video of July’s presentation is available on the website and also on our YouTube Channel. In this issue we continue our series “Archaeologists You Should Know”, highlighting George Fletcher Bass the Father of Underwater Archaeology. We also have another in the series of stories by local archaeologists titled “Early Experiences”. This month we have Dr. Uzi Baram, who will tell us about his experiences at the Chalcolithic village of Shiqmim in Israel. Also, if you haven’t paid your dues, we have two ways that you can pay them: Send a check to the PO Box or by PayPal on the website. Have a great summer and thank you for being a Time Sifters member. Darwin “Smitty” Smith, President [email protected] Archaeologists You Should Know the lead archaeologist working in Turkey’s Gordian, the ancient George Fletcher Bass capital of King Midas. He asked Young if the University would Father of Underwater Archaeology sponsor an excavation of the wreck. By Smitty, Time Sifters Board Member; Sources - Wikipedia, Current World Archaeology Magazine, Texas A & M University, and INA. George Bass was one of Young’s PhD students assisting him at the George Fletcher the 11th century CE. Working Gordian site. Young knew that Bass was born mostly in the Mediterranean, he Bass was very interested in the on December 9, has also excavated in the Caribbean Mediterranean Bronze Age and 1932 in Columbia and the waters of Virginia and asked if he would be the lead SC. He retired in Maine. As a classical archaeologist, archaeologist for Throckmorton’s December 2000 he has also worked many terrestrial proposed excavation. He agreed, and is currently excavations in Greece, Turkey, but first he had to learn how to Professor Emeritus and Italy. skin dive! He quickly enrolled in at Texas A & M a 10 week YMCA diving class and University where In 1960 while still a PhD student after completing only 6 weeks, set he held the he came to the attention of Photos: Institute of Nautical Archaeology George T. and Gladys H. Abell American photojournalist, Peter Chair in Nautical Archaeology. He Throckmorton. In 1958-59, Continued on page 3... received his M.A. in Near Eastern Throckmorton was documenting Archaeology from the Johns Hopkins and photographing ancient University and a Ph.D. in Classical shipwrecks off of Turkey. Among Archaeology from the University of these wrecks was the oldest then Pennsylvania. He is a past president known: a Bronze Age vessel from and founder of the Institute of about 1200 BCE. The site was Nautical Archaeology (INA) and Cape Gelidonya. He thought that the former archaeological director these shipwrecks should be of INA. excavated with the same care In his more than 30 years of and professionalism that terrestrial research and teaching, he has excavations receive. He approached excavated shipwreck sites ranging his good friend Professor Young from the Bronze Age up through of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Professor Young was

Early Experiences Life Underground By Dr. Uzi Baram - New College of Florida and Time Sifters Member Excavations at Shiqmim, in Israel’s Negev Desert Every archaeologist needs an Photos: Uzi Baram, answer to the question: What was your most exciting find? expedition recov- While I’m proud of my efforts ered underground recovering material traces of the tunnels and rooms early 19th century maroon at another Negev community of Angola on the Chalcolithic site. Manatee River and still energized Well, after a couple by the previous research into social of weeks, we did as relations as seen in modern (16th well. It was a -19th century) material culture in remarkable find. the Ottoman Empire, the answer Brushing away the is the excavations at Shiqmim in accumulated soil the Negev Desert of Israel. on the hill near the village, the crew It was 1988 and I was excavating located a well- Citation: Thomas Levy et al 1991 Subterranean Negev Settlement at Tel Dan when I met Tom Levy, assistant director of the W.F. Albright made hole in the Subterranean Settlement in the Negev Desert, ca. 4500-3700 BC. Na- Institute of Archaeological loess, the compact tional Geographic Research 7(4):394-413. Figure 6 Cut-away view of Research (aka the American soil of the region. rooms in portion of subterranean room and tunnel System. school of archaeology in Jerusalem) and he invited me to join his staff An exciting, even cultural complexity. Everything for a continuing project on the dangerous moment when the first of Chalcolithic village of Shiqmim. the expedition staff went into the about the archaeological expedition I was young and looking for engaged all the senses and opportunities. Once the season at cleared tunnel, with hand-holds Tel Dan ended, I went to visit my just right for a medium-sized person to intellect: being far from any road, uncle and aunt in Haifa, rested a easily climb down into a room just living in tents under starry skies, bit, and then took an Egged bus large enough to stand and walk eating pasta with red sauce for to Beersheva. seemingly every meal, walking the around. Niches in the walls for ground where ancient peoples At the Beersheva bus station, I storing objects and more tunnels joined others in a jeep and headed going deeper into the hillside – a built homes, and trying to figure on a 20 kilometer road-less drive out the material culture, landscape, through the Negev, bouncing all subterranean world opened up. and history for a place covered by around as the jeep raced across Reading Thomas E. Levy’s the uneven ground. The Chalcolithic scholarship, seemingly all the desert sands. The other staff (the copper-stone age) follows the possibilities for these underground members who continued in Neolithic, Shiqmim was a settled rooms have been raised and archaeology are trusted colleagues community, with agriculture and considered. Not having a definite (Time Sifters have invited them to pastoralism. The previous seasons answer is not a critique of archaeology speak over the years); the optimism of had uncovered several layers of but the opportunity of anthropology, to revealing complex aspects of the village life (that’s me in the blue continually rethink our assumptions human past has stayed with me; NY Met baseball cap) retrieving over the range of human cultural and, when asked about the most excavated soil for screening). The interesting find, I can point to how stone foundations indicated variation and lifeways. good leadership allowed a great rectilinear houses for these The village dates to 5500-3300 agriculturalists, and the storage BCE, a time period that we can team to find out a lot about pits offered great insights into the consider one of social experiments, ancient people from the landscape ancient lives. Overlooking the as people were figuring out ways to preserved for thousands of years. village, secondary burials in live lives of expanding social grave circles opened up insights networks and accelerating material into what Levy, who later became and still is a University of California at San Diego professor, labeled a chiefdom. But the director was hopeful that even more was possible. In the 1930s an archaeological

Continued from page 1 ... Israel’s Mediterranean coastline. Its protected waters served as an George Bass … continued anchorage for Tel Dor, one of the largest ancient mounds in Israel. off for the coast of Turkey to lead to rest during the excavation of During excavations, the team the diving expedition. He went on the royal ship Uluburun off of uncovered remains of seven to become the first person to excavate Turkey in 1984. different hulls, dated from the an ancient shipwreck in its entirety The Royal Ship Uluburun 4th-10 centuries CE. in the sea bed. This shipwreck is a Late Bronze Nautical archaeology was a neglected Age ship dated to 1300 BCE, The above are but a small sample of sphere of archaeology but Bass discovered about six miles off of the projects Bass was involved with. changed all that. Underwater south-western Turkey by sponge archaeology is unique in that water divers. Bass and the INA did 11 In Summary tends to act as something of a campaigns of three to four George F. Bass was the first person preservative, protecting wood and months' duration from 1984 to to excavate an ancient shipwreck other perishable items. The sites 1994 totaling 22,413 dives of in its entirety on the sea bed. can be difficult to reach by all but 148 to 200 feet. Extreme safety Since 1960 he has excavated experienced divers. measures were developed for Bronze Age, Classical Age, and Bass founded the Institute of this, the deepest large-scale diving Byzantine wrecks. Founder of Nautical Archaeology in America project ever conducted with normal the Institute for Nautical Archaeology (INA) in 1973, which helped to scuba gear. This wreck revealed (INA), he is now Distinguished make nautical archaeology a legitimate, one of the most spectacular ancient Professor Emeritus at Texas A&M professional aspect of archaeology. wrecks to have emerged from University. He has been awarded The Institute helped develop the the Mediterranean Sea. the Archaeological Institute of standards and methods for excavating The ship had an astonishing America's, Gold and recording under water archaeology cargo made up of 10 tons of Medal for Distinguished Archaeologi- taking the existing methods used cal Achievement; an Explorers on shore and adapting them to the Club, Lowell Thomas Award; a sea. These methods included: covering National Geographic Society, La the site with a metal grid to break Gorce Gold Medal; the Society's, it into 6.5 feet a side squares, so Centennial Award; the J.C. each diver, would be responsible Harrington Medal from The Society for the excavation of a specific area for Historical Archaeology; honorary of the site. Then they would map doctorates from Boğazi, University the site with underwater drawings, in Istanbul and the University of photographs and measurements Liverpool. In 2002 President taken from fixed metal stakes driven George W. Bush presented him into the rock around the site. with the National Medal of The Glass Wreck at Serce Liman Science. His books include: Between the years 1977 – 1979, Archaeology Under Water, A History of Bass and the INA excavated a Seafaring Based on Underwater Byzantine merchant ship dating to Archaeology, and Ships and 1025 CE off of Turkey. It had a Shipwrecks of the Americas and unique cargo of over 20,000 broken Photos: Institute of Nautical Archaeology Beneath the Seven Seas. glass objects. Following years of painstaking labeling and reconstructing Cypriot copper ingots and also the it dawned on the team that they largest collection of Canaanite were dealing with a cargo of broken jewelry ever found; Egyptian glass intended for recycling. None- objects of gold and silver; plus theless, some 80 intact glass vessels weapons of Near Eastern and were recovered and after 20 years Aegean origin. The objects found of gluing them together, Bass and on the ship are from over 10 his colleagues had managed to as- ancient cultures, from northern semble the largest collection of me- Europe to tropical Africa, and dieval Islamic glass in the world. In from Sicily to Mesopotamia. The addition, 15% of the ships hull was wreck itself was made of the preserved and has been reassem- famed Lebanese cedar. One of bled on shore in a museum. the tree rings on the planking Even after the establishment of dated to @1300 BCE. the INA, some challenged the notion of Tantura Lagoon, Israel nautical archaeology. Professional The INA, together with Texas divers argued that archaeologists A&M University and Haifa University could never dive well enough to between 1994 and 1996, excavated accomplish anything useful at the Tantura Lagoon which is one depth. This notion was finally put of the few natural harbors along

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