Today Khaled and myself would be scraping away at Square 95, concentrating on clearing away more of the soil closer to the floor and around the middle column, but leaving enough there to keep it in place, without exposing it to a possible fall.
Focus today would primarily be on the cross bulk, though as you can see that word is pretty much no longer appropriate. The bulk of the crew, under Aaron's supervision, would be going hell for leather getting rid of the middle bulk here, with the aim of creating one big, square, exposing the floor, and attempting to get a better idea of what this level would entail. With that in mind, the crew quickly got to work.
Today would also be the day that Luke would lowered down the cistern, to get an idea of what would be down there. From this shot below you can see that it's not particularly deep, and is most likely just a rocky bed. No water to speak of. And I like how the flash from the camera brings out the spider's web.
Dr Bob had found some rope which, though he felt not ideal for this purpose, would be strong enough to support Luke's weight as he was lowered down. Tying knots into the rope at approximately 40cm intervals, he then tired a bucket weighed down with a couple of rocks at the end of it, and went about lowing the bucket until it hit the bottom, just to get an idea of how deep it went.
Once reading of the depth had been established, everyone did their bit to get Luke psyched for going down. Fazel and Nassar were called over to add that extra bit of muscle, and with all that in order, down Luke went...
Sad to nothing was found of any great significance (and no demonic hordes to unleash). Mainly a rocky bottom and enclosed "walls", no markings of any significance. Could be worse, could've been a tomb, could've even been his!!
In the meantime, Aaron appeared to be doing a pretty smash up job keeping the crew motivated and slowly demolishing the bulk. I have to say that of all of us attempting to have at least some functional knowledge of conversational Arabic, he's the one who has put the most work into it. I suspect he simply doesn't sleep, but of course that would simply be me making excuses. In any event, the clock was ticking, and Dr Bob was really keen to get a look at the floor by the end of the day.
Jennifer has been struggling a bit with the food whilst here, and this morning was feeling particularly lousy, so had to go home early. After his escapades down the cistern, Luke felt the need to get a bit more... down to earth shall we say, so he and Hannah got to work helping me out in my section, which so far, though we were shifting a fair bit of dirt, hadn't really come up with much except the usual bits of pottery and glass. Focusing on this eastern portion of the square, they unearthed what at first appeared to be a water channel leading into a tiny pit.
Of more interest, however, was this piece of mosaic floor they exposed. This appeared to be at a slightly lower level than the rest of the floor we were beginning to expose in the area, and by the looks of things this was the last bit of mosaic remaining. Our suspicion is that the rest of the mosaic level may well have been dug up to make for the later floor of tiles that were laid - a pity really, from our perspective, but I'm sure for those doing the alterations at the time, it made perfect sense. It was interesting to note that this bit of mosaic floor continues under the alter that is placed next to it. So whoever built this altar, as a later addition, rather than tearing up the mosaic, simply placed this limestone altar on top of it. In any case, having taken note of the mosaic and how fragile the pieces of tessara were, we covered it with a fair amount of dirt in order to protect it - work would be continuing in the area, and chances are further damage would come to it from falling rocks (and not to mention careless humans) - we could at least take a further look of it at a later date.
In the meantime, work was coming along just swimmingly in Aaron's section. Swimmingly actually would appear to be the operative word, since by the looks of it this appeared to be some sort of bath complex, or pool of some sort. A ritual pool may be? Incidentally, there is an old archaeologist joke that any object or find, for which you have no idea of its purpose, is simply called a ritual [insert your object or find of choice].
Pottery reading came up with this interesting piece of slab found the day before. Although the markings on it appear to be natural, and don't appear to be of any great significance, it did nevertheless make for an interesting photo. Some pieces taken from Area E yesterday did in fact manage to piece together, where we were able to come up for a complete handle to what would have been a Ummayid era pot.
Evening, after dinner...
A few of the locals from the dig have turned up for a game of basketball. A few turns into quite a number, before long we have a full on party happening. Doesn't last for long, but for the time the locals are here the star burns brightly. The yard is now full of people, a conglomeration of a basketball game being undertaken on the North South axis, whilst others are involved in a hefty game of soccer operating on axis East West. The JBU kids come down, having finished class with Dr Dave, Liz has broken out her newly purchased Hooka pipe (double apple tobacco, smells awesome), and has got a crew of four puffing away. The senior staff just look on with bemusement. Needless to say I just can't work under these conditions!! I look around with similar bemusement, looking at the locals and how they must view us here - all these Americans chilling out in their under wear (well, shorts and t-shirts). Not sure how the girls feel being so "exposed", but I'm sure for our visitors this must be heaven.
Most of the party is now dissipated, most of the crew have headed upstairs to watch a movie on someone's laptop. Hi tech entertainment on the compound!! Now we have most of the neighbourhood kids hanging out on the porch. Rania from across the road has grabbed my camera (again) and gone around taking shots of everyone - kids, Raad from the kitchen, a couple of yours truly. It's interesting to see how, for such a supposedly conservative country, the kids are allowed to stay up late till all hours, playing in the street, hanging out with the grown-ups, and even being allowed to spend some time fraternizing with these crazy westerners. While most of us in the west would be ensuring that our kids are safe and sound inside our respective home watching TV or on the XBox, these guys allow their kids to (at least from our perspective) run rampant. Its certainly a different world here, one that I feel quite at home being in.
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