My two weeks of digging at Khirbet al-Ra’i are complete and I am back home. It was a very busy time full of hard work.  I am a bit tired and sore, but had a good time with lots of memories of the people that I worked with.

Today I have been decompressing from the trip. I did get a few loads of laundry done and also spent time connecting with people I met on the dig through social media.

Since I am tired, I will share just a few pictures from the last day of the dig.

As usual we arrived before the sun came up. As I walked up the last part of the hill the sunshades had not yet been put up and they were silhouetted against the sky.

We were soon working on a special project to clean up Area B where we had not dug this year. We had to make sure it will be presentable for the overhead pictures next week.It was good to get the hard work of clearing vegetation out of the way before the sun came up. Since we were on the edge of the hill we had a great view down into the Lachish Valley as the sun came up.

We were soon busy back in Area D finishing up the projects for the week. The site looks a lot different than what it did two weeks ago. One of the biggest differences was that all the balks were taken down so we could safely dig deeper.

This was one of the last pictures that I took. You can see the walls much clearer with the balks removed.

I am looking forward to seeing pictures from next week when they have wrapped up the dig for the year.

Now for some sleep.

Steven