Digging Tell en-Nasbeh, 1929

Between 1926 and 1935, American scholar William F Badè and his team unearthed the remains of a small town at the site of Tell en-Nasbeh in Mandate-era Palestine. Thought to be the biblical town of Mizpah, the site, which flourished c.1000-586 BC, yielded a great number of Iron Age, Babylonian period, and Persian period artefacts, among them lamps, ceramic vessels, and jewellery. IMAGE: courtesy of the Badè Museum, Pacific School of Religion Who did this digging? Besides the American staff, there were local labourers. Their work was seasonal, low-paid, and insecure. Men had a range of roles, while women mainly carried baskets, sifted dirt, and scoured the spoil heap for potsherds. Chi