|
Books by Michael
M. Homan
To Your Tents, O Israel /
The Bible for Dummies /
The Nine Commandments /
* *
* * *
Hurricane Katrina Made Me a Better Archaeologist
By Michael M. Homan
Thurgood Marshall
Middle School is a beautiful 100-year-old brick building
located near my house in New Orleans. When the levees
broke on August 29, 2005, the school flooded, as did all
of my Mid-City neighborhood along with 80% of New
Orleans. But now, nearly two years later, many homes and
businesses have begun the long process of rebuilding.
This is not the case for Thurgood Marshall.
It has remained
frozen in time — a snapshot of a very bad day. The
clocks inside all read 4:23, marking the time on the
morning of August 29th at which the electrical supply
was cut due to severed power lines. The building flooded
later that night, and the waters remained there just
short of three weeks. That's why there is a thick black
line on all of the walls. The chalk boards in the school
record what transpired on the afternoon of Friday August
26th, 2005, the last day of a very short school year.
There are calculus
equations, diagrammed sentences, civics lessons, and
homework assignments. At that time, nobody knew that
Hurricane Katrina would change its course a day later,
or that the levees of New Orleans were so dangerously
flawed, or that only half of the 60,000 students in
public school would return two years later, or that
Thurgood Marshall Middle School would remain closed
until this day.
There were three
public elementary schools in my neighborhood before
Katrina, though only one, John Dibert Elementary, has
reopened. I volunteer there every Friday. Despite great
teachers, it's not a very good school at the moment. An
incompetent state bureaucracy known as the Recovery
School District has taken it over, and they've proven
unable to produce things as simple as a hot meal,
textbooks, or toilet stalls.
Recently, I was in
a fifth-grade classroom, and the teacher showed me
psychological histories of the students. Several of them
had witnessed relatives drown in the flood. One girl's
mother drowned while she was holding her mom's hand, as
they tried to wade and swim to dry land. I'm ashamed
that my government took that kid's mom away, and now it
can't give her a decent education.
Tragic stories such
as these, along with what I witnessed firsthand in New
Orleans the days following Katrina, cause me to think
quite a bit about my work as a Near Eastern
archaeologist. Archaeologists by nature love
destruction. The bigger and more widespread the
detritus, the better. Many of the famous strata in
biblical archaeology, including Lachish III, Hazor XIII,
Megiddo VIIA, and Gezer VIII, were all ended and sealed
by massive destructions.
Similarly, much of
my work in the field deals with destruction. I spent the
summers of 2004 and 2005 with Ron Tappy excavating at
Tel Zeitah in the Shephelah, and I'll be joining the
team again for the 2007 season. At Zeitah, we have
several examples from the Late Bronze and Iron Ages of
"very bad days."
In my square, O-19,
there are two thick layers of destruction. The first
dates to the late ninth century B.C.E. and is possibly
linked to a campaign of Hazael of Damascus. Below this
destruction layer lies quite a bit of Iron IIa material
culture, and then another thick layer of burned detritus
seals a tenth century B.C.E. stratum that lies beneath
it. This tenth-century layer has been made famous by the
discovery of the Tel Zayit abecedary, found just weeks
before Katrina. So I count myself among the many who've
benefited personally and professionally from someone
else's very bad day.
Eleven thousand
kilometers and 3,000 years separate my New Orleans from
tenth century B.C.E. Zeitah — and yet, I am drawn to
their parallels. I've experienced firsthand the
destruction of a city and the pain of exile. I witnessed
death, and when I see the many lingering signs of New
Orleans' destruction I don't take them lightly. There
are certain neighborhoods, such as the Lower Ninth Ward,
that still evoke feelings of sacred space — places where
we let our children know that playing on the debris
piles or speaking loudly isn't appropriate in the wake
of what transpired.
It is important to
me that the story of what transpired in New Orleans be
recorded as accurately and objectively as possible. From
this experience, I better understand how we owe it to
the people who suffered tragedy long ago to do our best
at excavating — as we get only one shot at it — and we
need all of these clues to tell their important story
accurately.
Recently, my own
house has become an archaeological excavation. We've
just begun gutting it, the long delay due to Allstate
Insurance (but that is another long and tragic story).
We've been peeling away the layers of paneling, and
we've discovered archaic wallpaper on plaster that,
along with a map from 1908, has helped us establish
terminus post quem and terminus ad quem dates for our
house's construction. As we've removed the plaster and
lath, we've found inscriptions, pictures, newspaper
clippings, and even mummified birds, all giving us clues
about the history of the house.
We in New Orleans
believe that we're part of the remnant, those who are
rebuilding in the wake of devastation to face an
uncertain future. My family and I estimate that we'll be
living in our repaired house in about one year. And we
have faith that someday soon Thurgood Marshall will once
again have students. I pray, as did many people who
suffered a long time ago, that they won't forget what
happened there on a very bad day.
* *
* * *
To Your Tents, O Israel: The Terminology,
Function, Form, and Symbolism of Tents in the Hebrew
Bible and the Ancient Near East. by Michael M. Homan.
Culture and History of the Ancient Near East, volume 12.
Edited by B. Halpern, M.H.E. Weippert, Th.P.J. Van Den
Hout, and I. Winter. Brill Academic, 2002
To Your Tents, O Israel examines the function,
form and symbolism of ancient tents, specifically in the
Hebrew Bible, but also in the greater context of the
ancient Near East. Terminology associated with tents and
the blending of terms for domiciles are initially
explored. Then, using historical, mythological,
archaeological, and anthropological insights, tents are
examined in the manifold usage: domiciliary, military,
nuptial, and religious. Various parallels and models of
the Tabernacle will be assessed, and the Tabernacle's
historicity will be examined. The book ends by analyzing
a biblical phrase that dismisses councils: "To your
tents, O Israel!"
The Bible for Dummies by
Jeffrey Geoghegan and Michael M. Homan Wiley, 2003
The Bible has been
translated into more languages, sold more copies, and
been read by more people than any other book in history,
but when trying to understand the book as a whole, its
difficult to know where to begin. The Bible For Dummies
explains in plain English what's in the Bible, how it's
organized, who wrote it, and what i'ts all about. This
engaging guide includes easy-to-use maps, charts, and
pictures to help you make sense of the Bible and
important historical and cultural insights that bring
the Bible to life. Writing from an interfaith
perspective, the authors focus on the Bible not only as
a holy book for people of faith but also as a cultural
reference necessary for understanding works of art,
literature, and public discourse. With fascinating
background information, The Bible For Dummies is an
interesting one-stop guide to the worlds all-time
bestseller.
The Nine Commandments by David Noel Freedman,
Jeffrey Geoghegan, and Michael M. Homan Doubleday, 2000.
An engaging book that uncovers the hidden pattern of
crime and punishment in the Hebrew Bible.
Michael M. Homan, Xavier University
of Louisiana /
http://webusers.xula.edu/mhoman/
Source:
Society of Biblical Literature
posted 30 June 2007 |
