Working on an archaeological dig can be a bit dirty. Once I made it back home it was time for laundry to wash out some of the Iron Age dirt that my clothes had collected.

Here you can see that my jeans were a bit dirty. I like the protection that the denim gives me so have stuck with jeans on the digs I have been on. Many people wear just shorts or lighter materials, but I feel much safer in jeans. I also don’t have to worry about sunburn 🙂

I took some of my oldest socks and threw some of them away after wearing them. However, I did bring some of them back and they went into the wash.

Shirts were also dirty and sweat stained. I washed some of them out while at the kibbutz, but the ones from the last few days had to come back dirty.

This dirty collar made me think of the ‘ring around the collar’ commercials from decades past.

The dig clothes went through the washer three times and they are mostly clean. One of the pair of jeans will now be my yard jeans and some of the items will be put away for use in a future dig.

My trowel also had a bit of dirt left on it, but for now I will leave it uncleaned as a memory of the dig.

Of course it also took a few showers for me to feel clean after the dig.

Steven