Senior Michael Daniell spent nearly six weeks this past summer searching for artifacts in the ancient grounds of Dvin, Armenia, which is one of the oldest countries on Earth. The site holds a vast collection of old ruins from ancient cities that have been buried for years.

Many artifacts have already been discovered in the area Daniell was staying, such as containers holding six thousand Byzantine gold coins, which is the largest amount ever found. The team dug for hours every day and it really paid off, many coins were found including those from the Soviets, the Iron Age and the Bronze Age. Also uncovered were over five thousand pieces of pottery and around one thousand bones and bone fragments.

Even though searching was enjoyable, Daniell said the digging was “way too tedious. You had to carefully dig down one centimeter at a time, and we had to dig down eight feet!”

But all the work paid off. Daniell even came across some pretty cool artifacts.

“The best thing that I found was a fully intact black glass bracelet and a bronze coin.” Daniell said.

To avoid getting thrown in the Armenian prison for 10 years, Daniell wasn’t allowed to keep any of the objects that were found because the Armenian government has a strict rule about taking the artifacts out of the country; however he was given a few pieces of broken pottery and a Soviet stamped camera as a gift.

A relative who donates to the program gave Daniell the idea to apply, and even though it is a college course at UCLA, Daniell was accepted as a volunteer. The group consisted of Daniell, who was the youngest, eight college students, a few professors from the school and some Armenian guides.

The site they were staying at was surrounded by three cities, so in his free time Daniell got a taste of the culture that is so different than America. According to Daniell Armenia is “extremely male dominated- whatever the guy says goes, and is full of crazy drivers. And the first night there was a bunch of stray dogs running everywhere and I thought ‘oh god what did I get myself into?’”

According to Daniell, Armenia wasn’t anything like he expected. “It’s a third world country, yet inside some of the buildings it’s very nice. Apparently you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

Daniell plans to go back this summer to continue the search for remnants from civilizations that existed centuries ago.