Saturday 7 July - Irbid, Amman, Madaba

Day off - the rest of the crew are off to see the Castle Karak. I on the other hand have an appointment with the good doctor in Irbid to get my stitches taken out. Having seen Castle Karak already, I'm not too fussed. I'll arrange to get to Madaba and meet up with the crew at the hotel tonight.

Dr Bob and Aaron were heading down to Amman today, to do some research and stay the night at the American Centre for Oriental Research. Aaron was also needing to exchange some travellers cheques, something that the banks in Irbid, for whatever reason, would refuse to touch. Dr Bob has very kindly offered to take me to the hospital in Irbid - depending on how long it takes I'll then continue on with them down to Amman.

My appointment with the doctor had been for 9.30am, but sadly because of traffic we weren't able to get there till about 9.45. I'd hoped that wouldn't be an issue, but by the time we'd gotten there the good doctor was "in surgery". This was after the staff had spent a good ten minutes trying to find him - they managed to get him on the phone, where he told me that he wouldn't be able to see me until tomorrow. That, I said, would not be possible. I'd already blown off one outing with the rest of my group, I wasn't going to blow off another as well, especially since I'd need to be coming from Madaba.

After a lot of toing and froing, the staff (very decent of them), managed to find another doctor, who was able to remove the stitches. Thankfully Dr Bob was good enough to wait around in Irbid (I think he had some business to attend to anyway), and after picking me up we were on our way.




Was looking forward to spending another day in Amman, I don't think I gave it much of a chance last time I was there staying in Downtown. The two and a half hour drive proved to be pleasant enough with Dr Bob acting as tour guide, pointing out various biblical spots, including the Zarqa river (identified with the Biblical River Jabbok, where Jacob was said to have wrestled with the Angelic presence in Genesis 32:23).

Here's a few other shots from the road...

The American Centre for Oriental Research (pictured above) is indeed an oasis, having an absolute kick arse library, laboratory, darkrooms (remember them?), tea and coffee facilities, reasonable and affordable accomodation and dining - everything an archaeologist needs when they're away from the site and wish to conduct some research in more hospitable environs. Since 1968 it has served as a private, non-profit academic institution, dedicated (as their website says) to "promoting research and publication in the fields of archaeology, anthropology, history, languages, biblical studies, Arabic, Islamic Studies and other aspects of Middle Eastern Studies." Whilst Aaron and Dr Bob were getting settled into their respective rooms, I went for a little wander around the place - lots of youngish Americans lounging on couches with laptops and ear buds. Also a fantastic balcony with a great view of the city.

Dr Bob insisted on driving me down the road to the nearest place for lunch - I was seriously cool to walk the distance, but he would have none of it - "Way too hot" he'd say. So he drove me down, and he bid him a fond farewell (well, I'd be seeing him again back at base tomorrow night).

Now of course I had the challenge of navigating the bus system again, this time in a completely different city. I'd been given the name of Tababor as the bus station that I'd need to depart from in order to make it to Madaba, where I'd meet up with the rest of the crew - once again we'd be staying at the Mariam, so I was looking forward once again to a swim. Sadly, despite the stitches being out, I was still under orders to keep the hand dry for the next couple of days, but no matter, a dunk was still a dunk.

But until then, Amman was calling. Let me spare you the details - about three buses, three different directions, lots of walking. I'd like to say I knew where I was everywhere I went, but I'd be lying. Did manage to get a shot of this shop though, which I found amusing.

Managed to eventually find my way to the bus station, and after a bit of trial and error, found the bus to Madaba. Did the usual "You going to Madaba" in pigeon Arabic, bus driver answers "You speak English?", in perfect English. Works out that he'd lived in North Carolina for 16 years, married to an American. He'd been back in Amman 2 years, looking after his sick mother. Wife was still in the States - he didn't really indicate whether they were still together or not, and to be honest I didn't want to ask. Tough gig though, being away from your missus for so long - reminded me of my taxi driver in Dubai. We often hear how so much of the world's work force are expatriates, but rarely do we hear about the loved ones that they leave behind. Obviously this guy was in a different situation - it certainly wasn't for lack of work that he'd returned to Amman. Top bloke though - he made the trip to Madaba very pleasant. Lots of discussion as to how Jordan's changed over the years.
Back to Madaba, managed to find my way back to the Mariam Hotel. Would love to say I was able to find it from memory, but ended up having to ask directions from two ladies, who let me accompany them - they were living in the same neighbourhood as the hotel, so they were happy to help out. Got to the Mariam, checked into the room (would be sharing with Dave and Pete), and headed down to the ever important pool that I often find myself craving. Had my swim, and spent the next couple of hours poolside writing and enjoying a couple of glasses of wine. Eventually joined by the rest of the crew, who were absolutely shagged after their desert castles sojourn.

That night a group of us had dinner at the Haret Jdouna Restaurant and Gallery, located opposite The Church of St George (home to the famous Map Mosaic we'd visited on our initial visit to Madaba). Beautiful, beautiful place - food was magnificent (naturally), the DJ (yes the DJ) was spinning the usual fare of Persian Pop tunes, and I even managed to introduce the crew to the joys of haloumi (ah, haloumi!!). Though what I found most striking was not the food, it was the number of tables fall of female patrons, women hanging out together, sans hijab (all really attractive women might I add), drinking wine and sharing a smoke from the ol' hubbly bubbly. Come to think of it, one doesn't see many women veiled in Madaba, it being a town that is primarily Christian.

Back to the hotel, Dave, Pete, and myself hanging by the pool smoking cigars and shooting the breeze till the wee hours. Perfect end to an excellent evening!!

Dig Day 10 - Friday 6 July

Yes, another one of those 'Thank God its Friday' mornings. Coming to the end of Week 2, and everyone's suitably both exhausted and elated. Well, you probably wouldn't think so from Shane's expression at breakfast, but take my word for it, the excitement at the breakfast table is infectious. Or may be its just my feeble attempt to make it infectious - in all honesty Shane's probably just humouring me.




Today's a half day today, the local crew quitting at about 10 to head up and get paid. Cheryl will be dropping round to take some more official photographs of each site's progress. Dr Bob's grabbed a couple of water cooler bottles to splash across the floor of Square 95 in order to mop the surface up and make it a little presentable.




We're also hoping to stablize the base of the eastern column in order to re-erect it. He's managed to scrounge some ropes, hopefully we'll be able to erect it old school with some of these, some man power, and some pulley ingenuity.




Ana would be continuing with drawing up the top plan of the baptismal pool (as it has been christened - ha ha, for want of a better expression). This time Aaron would be assisting. Sadly this shot does bring them up, but the area is subdivided by white and pink string traversing both its x and y axis. Seeing them criss-crossing the area reminds me of those movies where people are breaking into some high security complex and having to dodge the lasers. This is the second time I find myself asking where Tom Cruise is when you need him.




Work would continue in Square 96. The usual configuration of a couple of guys shovelling, a couple loading goofas of dirt into wheelbarrow, and a couple of guys on the barrows shifting the dirt to wherever we can find to dump it.




It's surprising how far down one can dig with just two guys - starts me thinking that I've definitely underestimated the ability of my local colleagues. Lots of pretty cool looking fragments of glasswork - the green patina comes from the aging process, of course.












Dr Bob and I quickly to to work on cleaning the floor. Dr Bob would sparingly pour water from the cooler bottles, and got to work on mopping. Bit of a crude, makeshift job, but ss you can see, a little bit of spring cleaning brings out such a beautiful finish!! More importantly, it allows us to get a better look at the different tile motifs/configurations in the section south of the columns.




You can see the tiles in the southwest are different (ie smaller) that those in the main southeast section. Notice here also that they appear to begin in line with square and the south facing groove at the base of the column. Were beginning to suspect that thi was another section that was "cornered off", probably with another chancellry post and chancellry screen.




Cheryl turns up, and from here on in its all stops out to get some decent shots before the sun comes up. We're beginning to feel like vampires doing their last bit of dirty work before sunrise.








Whilst she's getting her shots done, Dr Bob and I grab the chancel screen and post and gently put them in place upon their respective bases. To our delight, they stay in place - at least long enough for me to get a few shots in.




Seeing it jogs my memory, and looking through my earlier shots of Petra, I stumble across a similar setup that I observed took in the Byzantine Era Petra church. You can see the similarity.




Dr Bob grabs some guys to get to work on chocking up the base of the western column. making it at least that little bit more level so that the column will balance atop it, once we get the thing erected again.




Next of course you'll see the usual exercise of getting a group of blokes together, trying to decide on the best way to lift something. In this case, the column. Dear Reader, I cannot stress enough how heavy this thing was, and without the appropriate lifting equipment, everyone was putting their two cents for the best way to lift. From tying ropes to shovels, using them as a makeshift lever, to simply giving it a go tying rope around the top of the column and simply lifting by brute force.




Sad to say, even with the numbers we had (including Faizel the machine), we couldn't get the thing lifted - not safely anyway, and Dr Bob was not prepared to risk anyone's broken limbs, which would seriously happen if it fell on anyone. Another one of those moments where you wonder how the hell the ancients did this,




Incidentally, I should mention that although this chapel dates from 7th - 8th Century CE up till its destruction, the columns come from an earlier period, and quite possibly before the church was built. In ancient times (and even in some cases modern), building materials get reused - this was certainly an issue for earlier excavations in the area - it was found that ancient limestone blocks from sites such as these were being used for some "modern" building projects.




At the "end" of the "work day", after we'd returned to the compound (and just before lunch), I took another shot of the grindstone that we'd found the other day. Also on display was this interesting looking specimen below.




I was convinced that it had to be an ancient toilet seat, but alas no, another grindstone by the looks of it.




During pottery reading that afternoon we were confronted with this interesting little piece that Dr Susan had titled 'thornware". The surface of the piece was almost "prickly", as if the potter had deliberately scoured the surface to give it a spikey texture. None of us had ever seen anything like it.




That evening we were back at Khaled's for dinner with his family. Tonight they were treating us to Mansaf, Jordan's most famous national dish. Served on one huge platter in the middle, this rice dish is generally served with chicken or lamb on top, sprinkled with liberal amounts of pine nuts. There is generally a yogurt type sauce which is poured over the rice, giving it the sticky texture which allows you to eat with your hands (oh yes!!). The general rule of thumb is grab a handful of rice with your left hand, squeeze it lightly together, then with your thumb break off bite size chunks of rice and, also using your thumb, flick it into your mouth.




Not sure if everyone was up to the eating with your fingers routine, but I gave it a go - then again I'm a bit of a sloth when it comes to eating. After dinner, it was out on the patio for a smoke from the hubbly bubbly, some tea, coffee, pepsi - the works.

Walking home with Dr Bob through town can be a bit of a physical challenge - its like trying to get home whilst walking next to George Clooney - one practically gets mobbed. As it works it, Dr Bob's a bit of a minor celebrity here in Hartha. Having been coming here since the eighties, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in town who hasn't worked with him on any of the sites on Abila, or had a relative that's worked with him. Every couple of minutes, its "Dr Bob, Dr Bob!! Remember me?" "Dr Bob, when are you having dinner with us?", "Dr Bob, remember Ahmed? I'm his brother." Poor ol' Dr Bob - and do you think he's able to remember all these people over all these years? But to his credit, he manages to engage them all - hence it takes absolute ages to get home!!

Dig Day 9 - Thursday 5 July

AREA E - SQUARE 95 - DAY 1

AREA E - SQUARE 95 - DAY 9

Ah, don't you just love before and after shots!! Here you see good ol' Square 95 as it looked on that first morning of Day 1, followed by the site that would greet us the morning of Day 9. The column that you see lying down on the mound of dirt was the same one to your right in the original shot. At the time we had no idea of the existence of the "left" column (the short one seen here in the middle), nor the chancelery screen. And to have a floor that has been preserved as it was over the centuries, to be still in relatively good nick (picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows notwithstanding) is indeed a blessing!! Even the base of the chancellory screen and post is showing promise (see below) - be good to see what repair job can be done to attach their respective top sections.

Today we would be joined by Ana Silkatcheva, MA Research student from Sydney University, my old Alma Mater. She came by yesterday to check out the site, upon introducing myself inquired as to my Australian accent. She'd been living in Jordan for the past three years, married to a Jordanian. They actually met on a dig!! Ah, the stuff dreams are made of, eh? Russian by birth, grew up in Adelaide, was doing her dissertation on mosaics under Dr Kate da Costa, whom I'd met two months previously at the same conference where Dr Politis had given his lecture on Lot's Cave. In a later email to me, Ana said she had a laugh when she read my account of visiting said cave. It was hearing "Dino" that first inspired her to come to Jordan, and she was in fact working on that very site in Zoara which he co-directed.

Anyway, Ana would be coming on board drawing up Top Plans of the major squares on site - obviously our drawing skills were perhaps a bit, shall we say, sub. Today she'd be drawing up the top plan for the (baptismal?) pool, assisted by Jennifer. Ana had also very kindly offered to take Arabic lessons for those interested in the afternoons. Apparently when she first turned up on site, some of the locals were being what they would be when a pretty girl turns up on site. She in no uncertain terms informed them that she knew Arabic. That shut them up pretty quickly, I'm told. In all fairness I should say that the local crew treated her exceptionally well, and she became quite the ally for we whitey anglo non-Arabic speakers on those rare occassions when certain cross cultural issues arose



Back in Square 95 - pretty much nothing left to do but prepare for when our top plan would be drawn up. Dr Bob was keen to see if we could find anything further around this indentation area, the break in the floor designated as Locus 007.


By the looks of it, judging by the impression seen in the top right hand corner (Northeast), at one stage there would have been probably another chancellery post there, and judging by the groove one can see at the base of the column, this would have been connected to another chancellery screen.


Hannah and I would keep digging around the area of the indentation, to see if there might be anything worth salvaging still. We did, but not for too long - it was obvious tht there was nothing more of value that we'd find here.





Well, except for the odd oxidised nail and piece of roof tile.









One thing I haven't mentioned until now was the existence of another cistern, located a couple of metres north of where the west column had stood. This was slightly narrower in diameter than the one down which Luke had descended the week before. I doubt that any of us would have fit down it. Not sure what we would have found down there, looking at the photos, I could make out what look like some oxidised bits of glass. Hard to know at this stage what purpose this would have served.





In the meantime, Luke and Aaron were supervising work on Square 96, which was going great guns. The boys now had a system going, having dug a makeshift dirt ramp which allowed the wheelbarrows to collect the dirt and in tandem head to the southern aisle to deposit. So far nothing of significance found, the usual pottery, this piece of glass slag which I thought was kinda cool, and the occasional piece of glass.





End of the day, left taking this - probably my favourite shot of Square 95


Coming back from the dig, Courtland mentioned that Area G felt shockwaves from the bombing over the border today. Area E is pretty sheltered,so we hear and feel nothing. It's weird, apart from what little news you get, you would never know that, not so far away, a violent revolution is taking place and being suppressed. Dave made an announcement at lunch to let us know that we were in no danger, but should push come to shove, they have a plan in place for Abu Nassar to pick us up and take us down to Madaba. I don't ask too much, but I suspect in his position he probably has a fair number of anxious parents to placate.




Afternoon pottery reading - this is just a small sample of what was brought back from all the sites yesterday. As you can see, we're never short of a sample.


These pieces were found in Square 95, first time we'd found any that were able to be pieced together to form a coherant PART of a pot.




This tooth also came up in the mix, plus this piece of glass bead.











That night after dinner Dave holds his Evangeical Theology class for JBU students on the roof - Aaron and I sit in. We even take the test on the text which neither of us have read. I think I did OK...

Dig Day 8 - Wednesday 4 July

Ah, 4th of July. In Jordan. With my American friends. Today should be fun. Well, tonight anyway.
But until then...

We were almost there with Square 95. A handful of blocks and stones to move, and ever diminishing piles of dirt to dispose of, and we should be done.

Parts of the floor were now exposed, showing what appears to be a tiled surface. Kahled, Jennifer, Hannah, and myself would be joined by Faizel the machine, and should get this area cleared by the end of the day.

The rest of the crew would be working on today's major focus, getting as far down in Square 96 as possible. Seems simple enough, but as you can see, once the sun comes out, they'll be digging with no shade whatsoever (we'll at least have a little bit with the baulk between us, provided it doesn't collapse). Thankfully the limestone wall embedded there should make it relatively stable.

OK, so I thought we'd be pretty much done with the major heavy lifting, but sadly removal of the dirt in the southwest corner revealed yet more limestone blocks. Enough to make one's heart sink, let me tell you. After the accidents we've had over the last week (myself and Mahmoud), the thought of hauling more blocks up the hill in our pokey little wheelbarrows (Arabai for you fluent in the Arabic tongue).

Luckily we have Faizel the Machine with trusty sledge hammer on hand to break them up into more manageable pieces. Now with getting Faizel to do anything, you usually have a 75/25 hit rate. He'll generally be lurking in the background until there some major lifting to do, in which case he'll spring into action and lift what would usually take two of us. Thankfully with the girls around, he's always ready to please (and who am I kidding? Same applies to the rest of us males).

Judging from our discovery of the pick head yesterday, we weren't holding out to be finding anythong of value. Nevertheless, it was still slowly slowly with the sifting and disposal. At least now we'd cleared pretty much everything in the southeast corner. Now that we'd exposed the floor here, we noticed that the tiles in this section were of a smaller size (about half the size actually) and held the illusion of being laid in a different configuration to those in the Western half of the area. We were now seeing an indented impression (ie no tiles) in the centre as well, which no doubt would give us something to mull over. This break in the floor would be labelled Locus 007 (cue shaken not stirred references).

In the meantime, work in Square 96 was going great guns, but we'd soon be running out of places to dump the soil. So far we had a makeshift pit happening in the aisle to the south of the cross baulk/ceremonial pool, which so far was doing the job - we had three wheelbarrows going in tandem down the hill from the square, to the point that you'd forever be dodging traffic when crossing into this section. Pottery pieces, though not plentiful, were being unearthed, but nothing to get over excited about.

Dr Bob kept a watchful eye nevertheless, still keen to discover what we could find in this section, but any connection to our little chapel in Square 95 was unlikely, be interesting to know what purpose these holes in the wall served.

Thankfully we were getting seem decent cloud cover by the end of the day, and it was nice to see the extent of our handiwork.

The odd limestone block notwithstanding, it was satisfying to see Square 95 finally cleared.

Back to base for lunch, and the crew are getting all psyched for 4 July celebrations tonight. Dave even managed to get some hamburger buns as a bit of a change from the ol' Pita bread. Plus he'd managed to score some fireworks for the evening.

Despite looking forward to the evening's proceedings, there was a bit of a cloud hanging over us. News had filtered through that some uprisings had flared up in Daraa, a city just over the border in Syria, about 15-20 minutes from where we were. These were by no means the first, a quick look at Wikipedia would confirm that there'd been quite a number over the last year or so. Nevertheless, at the time Dave gave us the news, little was known about Daraa, or what was going on, except that there'd been an uprising and some deaths, and journalists were denied entry. Hitting Google wasn't much help, and even my trusty Al Jazeera app wasn't give us much to go by.

It wasn't that we felt unsafe - far from it, apart from the little news we were getting, we'd have been none the wiser. Just felt a little strange (and almost disrespectful) to be celebrating a US national holiday with fireworks when just over the border Daraa was probably having some fireworks of its own, and not the fun kind.

One could easily get all self-righteous and morose over the situation, especially when having to endure Leigh Greenwood' s 'God Bless the USA' blaring from someone's computer. But you know what? There comes a point when one needs to get over themselves and allow for some celebration. Besides, my American friends were hardly the flag waving, fist waving, USA-chanting jingoistic types, and after witnessing (and hearing) numerous nights of partying from the neighbouring locals, I think we could allow ourselves one night to let our hair down.

Anyway, the rest of the afternoon was a bit of a blur - either laundry or sleeping - you know, the usual...

After dinner, it was up to the roof. I'd promised Cheryl and Paulette I'd sneak up some wine - Paulette would bring the bottle opener. Jennifer brought up her laptop for the tunes, and the celebrations commenced. The crew got together for a bit of line dancing - not quite the boot scootin' kind mind you, it was more...geez, I can hardly describe it - if you could imagine Kanye West calling a square dance. I even had to join in for a bit, before retiring to our little corner to open a bottle. Paulette started having second thoughts, feeling a bit uncomfortable drinking in front of "the kids".

"Paulette, I said, "the kids are having their fun, we're over 40, we're practically invisible to them."

She wasn't convinced, although Cheryl appeared rather impressed with my a social observation and high fived me.

Dave had done such a great job with the fireworks - very impressive considering our humble facilities. God knows where he obtained them. Funnily enough, I never thought to ask. Sadly the photos are pretty arse, and don't do them nearly enough justice.

Happy Independence Day!!!