Over the two decades that archaeologist Gus Van Beek excavated Tell Jemmeh, an Assyrian settlement inhabited from around 3,800 to 2,200 years ago, he recovered so many objects, it took the Smithsonian 40 years to catalogue them all. There were coins. Scarabs. Amulets. And an amount of pottery so vast, some of it later would have to be discarded.
