Friday, July 28, 2017

Art, Archaeology, and Identity in Caesarea and Haifa

Art, Archaeology, and Identity in Caesarea and Haifa





I went to Caesarea to work with a brilliant, creative marine geophysical archaeologist, Beverly Goodman from Haifa University.  Among other things, she studies ancient tsunamis so that we can better prepare our coastlines in the present and in the future.

Beverly was hoping that an excavation would be in swing while I was there, but that work actually has been moved to November.  Beverly has so many plates spinning, I am grateful for the time she could devote to shooting video with me, for time spent shuttling me around, and for the home stay she arranged.

Since we only had a little time together, we decided to focus on a very narrow story: how a fable from the Talmud helped researchers to date an ancient seismic event, and how such events are indicated by large deposits of a particular kind of seashell.  Near Caesarea is Tel Dor, and beaches there are just COVERED with these shells.  Walking through them, of course, makes a marvelous sound, so we captured that.

We could not, however, get into the recording studio at Haifa University at any time that worked for us, so we had to record at the beach with a windsock.  It is good enough for a YouTube video for Beverly’s website, but to make something film festival worthy, one really needs to record clean voiceover and mesh it on top of ambient ocean and shells.  So this is a sketch for a better version next visit, hopefully!    And she can use it for presentations.


Phoenicians were the first people we know of to build a port at Caesarea.  Then King Harod built a Roman city.  Medieval European crusaders were there, Mumlaks, Ottomans, and Arabs.  Many layers of history indeed!

Tel Dor was also an important Phoenician site.  The small local museum there is a true gem.  They have a whole case of Astarte goddess figurines, a case of jewelry that the Phoenician acquired from trade with Egyptians, fine examples of amphorae from various Mediterranean explorers (Cyprus, Greece, Phoenicia, etc.) and many other notable artifacts.  The rooms of the museum are set up as installations, including an underwater archaeology room.





I also was in my glory at the art museum at Haifa University, Hecht.  The bulk of the collection on display was Canaanite archaeology.  A whole wing is devoted to Phoenicians specifically, a subset of Canaanite along with Israelites and other tribes.  In this wing, as with the Tel Dor museum, the exhibit design was installation focused.  Instead of an institutional floor, the visitor crunches through Mediterranean stones to examine artifacts.  I loved it.

Not to ignore the Modern and Contemporary art of the region, I took a train to Israel’s hippest city, Tel Aviv.  The Tel Aviv Museum of Art was enormous and took me the whole day, so I did not venture on to any galleries but for one that was hosting the museum’s new video art acquisitions.  It was worth the trip! (--and a relief to spend a whole day in air conditioning.)

My hosts for this leg of the trip were amazing, Ofi and Uri and their young adult son Nadav.  They took me in like family.  Ofi loves to nurture people, and Uri is very athletic like me.  He has devoted much of his retirement to mountain biking all over the region! So he showed me a nearby park with mile and miles of trails for me to run---plus goats and Griffon vultures and jackals and English gardens!

Again, I felt like I fit in here really well.  The ancestral roots were all around me.  The locals look like my mom’s family (Grandpa used to say we were of Phoenician stock), and Ancestry.com insists that my Polish grandma’s maiden name is usually Ashkenazi, though I have not yet convinced my dad (who was blond as a child).  So lots of identity sorting…

Also, Beverly and Ofi are both archaeologists and both moms.  I think THIS would make a great short film!  Those things just do not go together in my mind.  Archaeologists are free spirits and high-risk adventurers, traveling all the time.  How do you balance that with motherhood ?!??  Both women have taken very different approaches.  I felt profoundly inspired.  


I hope I get to go back and do more work with these wonderful, intrepid women.  This first trip felt like a research trip to feel out the area, which is so rich with stories to be told.

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