History and Archaeology at Bachman

Recently, students in Bachman’s High School History classes visited the Lynn H. Wood Archaeological Museum at Southern Adventist University. There, they were able to see genuine artifacts from the time of Abraham in Ur through the Roman Empire.

The museum manager gave them a private tour through the museum, explaining the background of the artifacts and displays in detail. He answered the students’ many questions about time periods, and how some of the pottery and buildings were created.

“I think the experience was very valuable in showing students how we discover the past and learning how people lived,” said Tammy Henkel, History Instructor at Bachman.

Larkin Davis, senior at Bachman, was intrigued by a story of Neuchadnezzer in Babylon.  Larkin said, “When Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt Babylon, he had his name stamped into every brick that made up the city so that everyone who lived in there would remember that he’s the one who built it.”

After the field trip, the students arrived back at the campus to find their very own archaeological dig set up for them. They employed the same methods to find hidden “artifacts” in the sand (photos of real artifacts) that real archaeologists used to find the artifacts now housed in the museum at Southern. In the midst of the photos of actual artifacts, were pieces of flotsam and detrius just like one would find at a real dig. The students had to determine what were actual “artifacts” and what items were not. They then researched the artifacts they found to determine a relative time period and how they might have been used.