A Lil War Surrealism For Yall:

A lil war surrealism for yall:

I've had lots of surreal experiences in my almost-decade of being an archaeologist but I honestly never imagined I'd experience neither a Genocide 2: Arab Boogaloo nor working in the field as that's happening, as if everythings fine and Normal(TM). My current project is somewhere on the fringes of cities to middle of nowhere, center-south. We can sometimes hear distant explosions, coming from the romantic meeting between this or that Qassam warhead and the iron dome, or from the shelling of Gaza itself. We don't get any sirens here because middle of nowhere fringe and all that, and honestly I don't think any shelling of this area would even be reported because we're sort of close to several sensitive venues (dw, they're civilian. I ain't growing no tails next to Dimona).

So this happened last week and I'm still having a hard time letting go. I was digging in my square minding my bsns to the sound of absolute silence intermittently broken by the wind and some birds. Soon enough we started hearing distant explosions which sound like iron dome interceptions, quickly turning into very loud explosions that sound like warheads intercepting the ground. When absent a bomb shelter the best thing you can do is either lie down flat on the ground or find a "safe pit" (that isn't made of brittle rock or soil type that could collapse inward upon impact, burying you alive), so naturally I jumped down into the 3m pit I was previously digging. The funny thing about digging up ancient graveyards is that at some point you sort of forget you're digging up an ancient graveyard, so the fact that the pit I just jumped into was exactly that - someone's tomb, completely escaped my brain. It's a narrow, small pit, like 1.5x1.5m in total, so getting comfy in there is almost impossible, especially with Some Guy (or girl!) lying around. Oh yeah, bestie was still there. The uh interesting thing about Israeli law is that bones, whether human or not, are not considered archaeological material, so you're legally not allowed to touch (take) them, so like proper grave robbers we just take their shit and go (an extreme oversimplification but ok). So I'm sitting there with this other 4500 year old person, trying to position my legs to the best of my ability as to not touch them/step/sit on them accidentally, cause u know, לא נעים. Bestie was deemed to be in the age range of 20-30 by our kooky physical anthropologist, placing them in my own age range.

I sat there for about 10 mins, glued to the soil walls, listening to the explosions and waiting the obligatory 10 mins, cause noone wants to play chicken with rocket debris. 10 mins is a looong time to spend practically spooning a dead stranger, and thinking. The strangest and oddly comforting thought I had was that Im not alone, I got this deceased they/them with me. Nothing was obviously left from their face but idk they looked quite peaceful lying there in a fetal position, same way I often find myself sleeping in, and whatever anxious thought I had about The Situation around me just went away. I was also thinking about the absurdity and comedic value of this situation - lying in someone elses 4500yr old tomb to avoid my own. All in all there were only around 4 (iirc) pretty terrifying explosions. Idk if any of those rockets actually landed or if those were interceptions, but you could really feel the sound of them in your body, and the vibrations were definitely felt in the soil. I think every Israeli is familiar with this sensation. While Im a big ol heret-sorry, Atheist(TM), I was wondering if this 4500yo dead person could also feel this sensation in their bones. It strangely felt like a shared experience, like I was genuinely not alone.

After the longest 10mins of my life I climbed out with the help of some colleagues, some of which also took refuge with the dead. I said a silent thank you to bestie and spent the next 30 something mins properly covering them back with soil, thinking thats the least I could do after very rudely allowing myself into their final airbnb.

Cant really articulate my feelings on this but just the idea of jumping into a dead dudes room to escape death and feeling as if Im not alone and the dead dude is right there with me in this experience has me fucked up.