Archaeology (archae = ancient, ology = study of) is the study of human cultures by examination and analysis of material remains that may explain the events that happen during that specific time and the development of culture. It is not just playing with dirt and digging things. Other parts of the world may spell the word archeology but it is not predominately used. Archaeology is more commonly used as a word for studying of human cultures, which makes it a subcategory of anthropology; however, Walter Taylor made it clear that it is not anthropology since there is a method of specialized techniques to gather cultural information. Because there are very few written records (writing did not occur until 5000 years ago), we are unable to clearly study those cultures during those times.
Modern archaeology relates to the Bible because biblical scholars use archaeology to explain the events in the Bible. It is used to explain how an environment was, how people lived, and what existed during that time. Different artifacts and pottery reveals a lot of what people thought and believed. Being able to study archaeology can fortify the Bible stories and explain to us more in depth what happened during that time.
I want to be involved in an archaeological excavation because I feel that it’s one of the best things to find out about history. I can also travel around the world to different places and experience different things. Being at places mentioned in the Bible would help me understand and place myself in the setting of what I read. To be able to take part in finding something amazing would make my life more meaningful. I am not completely motivated to be an archeologist, but it is not that bad of a career.
There is a debate on vertical and horizontal stratigraphy, which is just two different ways on excavating sites. Vertical stratigraphy is the approach of excavating by digging vertically down, creating a trench, into the earth and studying the site from bottom to top. It is more recent compared to horizontal stratigraphy. Horizontal stratigraphy is the first approach of excavating by digging horizontally to find a room or area. It is known to cause more destruction and expose a broad horizontal area compared to vertical stratigraphy. Archaeologist Dame Kenyon was the first to excavate Jericho using the vertical stratigraphy approach, which clearly presents the strata in greater details. Now, most archaeologists use both combinations during their excavations because they are able to study more from it.
For all of the creation myths I read so far, all of them have some things in common. For example, the creation of people and other things by a god. The god Ptah thought of his creation in his heart and speaks it to bring its reality. God created Adam from the earth’s dust and from Adam’s rib came Eve. The gods also created people after his image. It also tells how and why people came to existence and how they fell from grace like Adam and Eve and Apsu’s children. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit of knowledge that God told them not to so he punished them by casting them out of the garden. Apsu and Tiamat wanted to rid their children because they were aggravating. We also see the creation of the sky. God created the firmament which prevents water from pouring into earth and Marduk created the sky from the upper body of Tiamat.
There are a lot of reasons why humans write creation myths. Most of these stories contain illogical events that we are not able to comprehend with science unless we accept these to be true. We believe that there is a higher being out there that created all of this, so we accept them as we try to find out the truth behind them. Creation myths also explain the unexplainable and reveals where we originate from. It attempts to help us understand who we are and why we are here.
Besides the Genesis, I think that the most interesting creation myth is the mythology of creation and chaos. Tiamat, a saltwater dragon and Apsu, a freshwater god created all that exists. They created other gods and eventually, were irritated by them. Apsu and Tiamat wanted to rid of them, but when one of the descendants realizes their plans, Apsu was killed. Later on Tiamat heard of this and was outraged. She called for an army of monster to revenge his death but was later killed and became the sky and the earth. It’s a story of betrayal and deceit, very interesting.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 31st, 2006 at 11:49 pm and is filed under Week 03: Your Project. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.