[Nate]

Actually, it was illegal. Or at least questionably legal, given that my boss the archaologist hadn't gotten permission from the Antiquities Authority.

The grave was of a several-centuries-BC Idumean, so it wasn't ethically wrong per se. My boss had asked me if I had religious qualms about exhuming a grave and I said no. I felt twinges of doubt when I went down to the site and saw buckets full of what were clearly human bones. I felt quite uncomfortable when I realised that I would have to stand on one grave in order to dig through the other*. But then when I found a heavily verdigrised copper ring, it really sunk in that I was digging through what used to be a person and I almost had a panic attack. I felt very short of breath and needed to get out of the cave in which we were digging, then refused to get back in.



* Judaism has quite a strong taboo against desecration of - and even standing on graves. I managed to justify my involvement of the first one because it wasn't a Jewish grave, but superstitions stay with you anyway.