There’s Something About Archaeology!
1610 words by Khaira Weber
Archaeology is the study of arches where archaeologists study the past and how people used to live including everything about them such as their customs, beliefs, and political practices. The study of archaeology helps the archaeologist to see how other people are different from us and this is important because the archaeologist has to depend on their understanding of the present as they try to figure out how one lived in the past. They base their study on physical remains known as artifacts that give them clues to how things went on in the past. They also envied ancient Greece, which led to them the digging of Greek sculptures. People are always curious about how certain skills and practices developed. Well, archaeologists can study the way people behaved for over thousands of years. Also, they must be very careful because they must know and record the order that things have came from the ground, which group of things were found together, and where these things were found. No one can use clues that have been removed and mixed up. This is why archaeology is known as a destructive science because it can only be revealed once.
In archaeology, they must have permission from the government before they can choose a site to dig from. They must choose a site in which only remains a tell or a tel, which is a small mound that forms from long periods of human activity after a while of being abandoned. It is often mistaken for a hill, except only this one is unnatural. It is usually made up of many layers. The things on the bottom were the earliest and the things on the top came later, in which there are great changes from one layer to another. Archaeologists have discovered many different ways of doing things. One is that they dig test pits to reveal the size and many other interesting facts. For instance, they might do one deep cut into the side of the mound in order to see how many layers are there. While digging, archaeologists can usually feel what they are hitting by a special small pick. They always use delicate tools for assistance so that they would not cause potential danger to the artifacts. They may also use brushes, shovels, and bulldozers to get through material because once they dig through a layer they must be accurate and complete their records because once it is cleared away it is gone forever.
Every expedition usually has large tents, which they clean, sort, label, and record the artifacts. This is also where the smaller and more delicate artifacts are stored at the end of the day. Whereas, broken objects, heavy objects, and bones are cleared and sorted in a area near the site. They are then carefully labeled as to where it was found along with a written description of the object found each day where they are then put away for further study. But what’s really neat is how the most interesting ones are drawn and photographed. Archaeology first started as the Byzantine and Crusader pilgrims wanted things from the Holy Land and then the Renaissance arose, in which they were in love with classical remains such as temples and stuff like that. They also explored places such as Pompeii. Archaeologists couldn’t verify that the events in the Bible happened, but they found backgrounds. Archaeology relates to the Bible because without history it is meaningless. Meanwhile, as it verifies history it also sheds the light of various passages of the Bible. As a matter of fact, archaeology has had its advantages for providing background to biblical stories. Many archaeologists wanted to voyage the Holy Land in order to verify that specific events written in the Bible were true. They often did it to see what Egypt and Jerusalem was like back then.
Many early explorers found things that were related to the Bible such as Sir Flinders Petrie, WF Albright, Howard Carter, Heinrich Schliemann, Dame Kathleen Kenyon, Giovanni Belzoni, and Sir Leonard Wooley. Sir Flanders Petrie was the Father of Egyptology (1853 to 1942) who developed ceramic sequencing, in which a dating technique is used to figure out when the artifact was found. He was also the first person to pay attention to pottery. WF Albright (1916-1972) showed the influence of archaeology and biblical studies. Howard Carter found King Tut’s tomb in 1922. In 1871, Heinrich Schiemann found Troy. Giovanni Belzoni, who was based on Indiana Jones, found Egyptian artifacts. Finally Sir Leonard Wooley at Ur found only things that were related to the Bible. Back in the days, it was harder to learn about the Bible because of the techniques that were used. Since then there have been advances in modern archaeology that is able to assist in learning more about the Bible. The vertical vs. horizontal stratigraphy debate came about by Dame Kathleen Kenyon, a British archaeologist, who discovered a new method of digging.
Before her method was put to use, archaeologists dug horizontally. The vertical stratigraphy is hardly ever promising, therefore the most common is the horizontal stratigraphy. They would find the walls and dig out the entire room using horizontal digging and vertical digging is basically just narrow trenches that show the relationship between the layers. Today, most archaeologists use a combination of both of these stratigraphy methods. I wouldn’t mind participating in an archaeological excavation of a biblical cite because I had never really paid that much attention to archaeology and I find it quite interesting now. I think that it would be cool to find ancient coins, hieroglyphics, and stuff like that in which is talked about in the Bible. It is new to me, yet at the same time it is an ancient and historical antique. I would be able to experience the art of excavation up close in person. I would one day like to tell others about things that I have seen in a biblical site.
All of the creation myths that I have read try to explain its human origins and it is about developing new things into life by a form of God such as how it is reproduced and created. It is about their belief of how they believe the world began. They also explain and express their particular creations in form of a short story. Humans write creation myths because of curiosity, which makes sense because we are all quite curious, and to convince present social and political information. Basically, they just authenticate the world to make sense out of everything. The 5 assignments that were to be read in class
(Enuma Elish, Creation by Atum, Theology of Memphis, Hesoid’s Theogony, and Genesis 1-3) were all similar in some form. In Enuma Elish, Mardak created the moon and the sun through speech. Apsu couldn’t sleep because his kids were bothering him so he really wanted to kill them. Then Ea killed his father and Tiamat didn’t seek revenge upon her son so there was no peace in the land. Instead, Ea’s son Marduk killed Tiamat, in which was his grandmother in order to set up a monarchy. So Marduk became wound up with his new title as Great Lord of the Universe. In the Creation by Atum, Atum is created by violent waters and he created Shu by sneezing and Tefnut by spitting. Atum then feels honored as the creator of Shu, Tefnut, and his other children. In the Theology of Memphis, Ptah created all of the gods through “this heart and this tongue”, which means that he thinks in his heart and creates by speaking. For example, he said Atum and he was created. He then fights for the title as creator of all gods on account that he is the creator of Atum. In Hesoid’s Theogony, Athena came from Zeus’s head and Aphrodite came from the waters, which genitals were tossed in. The older generations of gods were disturbed with the younger generations so they fight with lightning and violent waters in order to see who would get the most authority. Finally in Genesis 1-3, God created the earth and animals by words of His mouth. Adam and Eve disobeyed God which left them alienated from His love. They ate the forbidden apple in order to be more like God.
I found the creation myth by Atum the most interesting because I am fond of the creation myth of Gaia. First of all, Atum means totality which was curved inside of the pyramids of Mernere and Pepi II. Well, Atum is created out of violent waters and he also produces his next generation alone. While Gaia is known as Mother Earth, her name means land, and she created her next generation also without male intervention. What gets me is that her husband is also her son. Now that’s just nasty. She has some children for him and then she got another one of her sons to kill him because she feared that he would harm her kids. Then she had some more children for another one of her sons. It was very funny and interesting to me because it was so crazy. But the Creation of Atum would do for me, even though I also kind of like Enuma Elish because it is the Babylonian creation story that was written on seven tablets. Seven is so significant because they saw seven luminary bodies and they wanted to mirror what was going on in the heavens. Not to mention that Enuma Elish also means “when on high.”