Whenever I discuss the work schedule at Omrit with other people, I brace myself for the inevitable shudders when they learn about the 4:30 AM wake-up knock.
A friend might not be moved by the description of the physical labor— of the wheelbarrow runs and the picking, hoeing, and shoveling in 100 degree heat. Someone might not bat an eye at the bugs we encounter at Omrit and at the kibbutz (including a recent incident with a giant moth, and the unrelenting gnats that aim straight for our ears, eyes, and noses). However the 4:30 AM wake-up knock is guaranteed to prompt some sort of reaction! Even my roommate, a graduate student who has worked at numerous sites in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, and Yemen, never woke up so early for an archaeological dig.
A bright morning at Omrit
Every morning the directors and supervisors come to our rooms and rap loudly on our doors to ensure that we will be ready for our 5:00 departure for Omrit. I won’t claim to represent the rest of the Williams contingent when I say that I actually enjoy getting up that early. Some days it is a gargantuan struggle to will myself out of bed, but oftentimes it seems easier for me to wake up at 4:30 here than to wake up for my 8:30 classes back at Williams. Perhaps if I had been greeted at 7:30 AM at Williams with a hearty “Boker Tov!” or “Wakey wakey eggs and bakey!” my mornings there would have been much more pleasant!
When we get to the site we are often welcomed by our neighborhood rooster as we prepare our shades and tools for the workday. By the end of the first week everyone has already settled into a routine; square teams huddle to strategize for the day’s work, and people stake claims on their favorite picks and hoes, at times guarding them with an obsessive affection that more or less captures the close relationship between archaeologists and their tools (some things never change). The refreshing morning chill, the stunning view of the Hula valley, and the satisfying rhythm of the site that I fall into again so easily make those early hours at Omrit my most enjoyable mornings of the year. Even the exhausting work of removing twenty large limestone blocks from my square, J21, cannot change that (but more to come on that later!)