Students from Oklahoma college head to Israel for archaeological dig

Students from the Herbert W. Armstrong College are set to leave Sunday for what many of them consider a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take part in an excavation in an area that archaeologists believe was a royal complex built by King Solomon more than 3,000 years ago.

“Just getting your hands on history and digging where kings lived is exciting,” said student Monica Antonio, 21.

Student Tyrel Schlote, 21, shared similar sentiments. “Definitely the prospect of finding something amazing is there. The potential to find something exceptional is extremely high.”

Antonio, Schlote and two other students majoring in theology said they have been preparing for the archaeological dig with months of classroom work. Student Callum Wood, 21, said they learned excavation terminology plus information about the site where they would be digging and how to dig.

Shane Granger, marketing director of the Armstrong International Cultural Foundation, said the students will be in Israel for five months and receive semester credit for their work.

Archaeological partnership

Granger said the students will be working with archaeologist Eilat Mazar, Ph.D., of Jerusalem's Hebrew University at a site where Mazar hopes to uncover portions of the 10th century B.C. palace area known as the Ophel. Granger said the excavation area will be “a stone's throw from the Temple Mount.”

“Dr. Mazar is really excited about this particular dig because it is unexplored territory,” he said.

Granger said the students' participation in the excavation project is part of a partnership forged in 1968 between the college's founder, Herbert W. Armstrong, and Mazar's grandfather, prominent Israeli historian and archaeologist Benjamin Mazar. Granger said Benjamin Mazar offered to let students from Armstrong's small liberal arts college participate in the excavations he was beginning in Jerusalem.