9:00 PM - Cypress, Israel, & Sudan - Archaeologist via Nashville, Tennessee, USA

 When: March 9th @9:00 PM

Where: Cypress, Israel, & Sudan - Archaeologist via Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Who: Scott Huff - Archaeologist

What is an archaeologist? “People who deal with things people left behind.” Writings carved into stone, ancient buildings, pyramids, etc. They dig in the dirt in foreign countries searching for answers to their questions they must present to the government, and they’re only allowed to dig where it seems as though people had lived. They’re never on the site for more than a month. Anything found in a month takes about a year to publish. They have to finish one project prior to starting another.

This specific archaeologist has had about 12 visits to Israel finding buildings, Canaanite temples, and much more. On his first trip to Israel, the search team had found shards of ancient pottery from 3,000 years ago. On a recent trip, his search team found four rooms, two entry ways, and a hallway of a Canaanite temple. People used to even live in “tells”, and when they wanted to build a new building, they would just build on top of it. EVERYONE LIVED IN ISRAEL.

In Sudan, ancient pharaohs were found. Search teams have to dig under pyramids due to the Nile River. Some pyramids have underwater rooms and halls. Bones and ceramics are often found. The bones help archaeologists estimate what people’s diets were back then and what most people ate. Experts would come in to examine the ceramics. The experts would identify where the ceramics originated from and what their purpose was. Pottery found in Sudan was made for holding expensive items: perfume, oils.

People will use the cities after their original purpose. Some ancient cities were covered and are merely hills now. When wanting to build something new, they wouldn’t tear it down, but they would smooth out the surface and build over it. This created multiple layers of buildings underground. Even digging has a different purpose. Archaeologists used to dig until, “they found something shiny.” Now, archaeologists dig for answers. Artifacts are even deemed valuable depending on what questions the artifacts answer. The most valuable discovery being Hittites. It’s an ancient civilization found in present day Turkey, and they developed the earliest indo-european language.