June is usually the start of dig season in Israel, and I always look forward to reading about the different archaeological digs that are underway. In some years I have also participated in digs during the summer.

Last year there were not too many digs during the summer because of COVID-19, but it looks like this year there will be quite a few.

Here is a picture from a dig that I was on two years ago.

The dig was of course a lot of hard work and I made many trips to the dump with a wheelbarrow. The dig was not too good on my knees as I had a minor twist of one of my knees the first day and it took some time to fully recover after the dig.

I am also thinking of past digs like this one at Lachish.

Tonight I was remembering a visit to the dig at Abel Beth Maacah. During my Wednesday night class on the Divided Kingdom I shared a picture of one of the recent finds when talking about the conflicts between Israel and Syria.

I am also thinking about the last trip that I took. It has now been about 18 months since I last flew on an airplane. The trip was to Germany, and while there I visited a museum that had used some of my pictures in an exhibition on Life at the Dead Sea.

Hopefully there will be some nice discoveries at the digs this summer.

Steven