Okey, Dokey, Dr. Jones!

Short Round (and Sister) descending into the caves

(Andrew) Today we went picking, shoveling, searching, sifting and exploring through a 2,000 year old basement that was literally a dump. The basement became a dump when the Jewish Edomites came into the Pagan Greeks lives and gave them three options; convert to Judaism, refuse and be killed, or be forced into exile. The people that went into exile destroyed their houses, buried the rubble in their basements, and left with their prized possessions. The basements were made because they were really quarries; the locals dug down, took out bricks to make their houses, and as a byproduct got a spider-webbed sequence of caves. We entered the ancient Filene’s Basement and it got 20 degrees colder. The first things we got were our tools. The tools included a pickaxe, a trowel and 2 buckets (one for finds and one for debris). The first thing I found was a shell with a hole in it, which I think was ancient jewelry. We found pieces of pottery, bones (roasted and plain) and shells. We filled up at least 20 buckets of junk and schlepped them up to the extremely bright surface to sift through. We picked up a bucket and dumped it on the sieve. Reis and I shook it like an earthquake which reminded me of the parachute game we used to play in 1st grade gym class. We were looking for stray shards and a once-in-a-lifetime coin.

We then went into an unexcavated cave where the main command was, “Watch Your Head.” We had to duck, slide and crawl which made me feel like Short Round following Indy on his adventures. We passed the olive press, columbarium (where the doves nested underground) and water cistern before emerging. On the walk back to the car Mom found a beautiful piece of painted pottery which goes to show that the whole thing is mostly luck.

Check out the video of Indy and Short Round below: