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!!
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