first day on-site

Another fantastic day! We were supposed to start digging on the Tell yesterday but, due to some unforeseen and minor problems with permits, we had to delay it by one day. Instead, I gave a tutorial to the students on excavation practices, forms, techniques, recording, history of the excavation, etc. It seemed to go over well and was (mostly?) understood, so I am a happy camper. I do love to talk about archaeology.

The students arrived on Saturday and we have been giving them tours of the town, showing them where the internet cafe is (strangely named "The Iron Rod", for unknown reasons), where our friend, Youssef, is located (he is the "go-to" guy for gifts and things, and a very nice man, always ready to chat and have a cup of lovely mint and sugar tea). They all seem to be settling in nicely and I can honestly say that I find them to be a great group overall, very enthusiastic, excited, willing to work and learn, and trying their best to learn Arabic words and phrases. I am quite impressed by them so far.

Yesterday was spent by the pool lounging, much deserved due to all the hard work the staff has done since arriving, setting up house, finding and arranging field equipment, going back and forth to the airport, among other things. We went to a pool that we haven't been to before, at Arnon, about a 10-minute drive out of Madaba. All four pools there were largely empty as the kids are not out of school yet, and so we enjoyed some beers and argileh and got a bit of sun. A very nice day.

Today, the first day on site, as I mentioned above, was one of those physically-exerting days that leaves you with a most satisfying numbness and ache in your limbs when you sit down after work. We hauled away three-quarters of a rock pile that has accumulated over the years, rock that has been removed during the course of other excavations. All the staff were extremely satisfied with the work that the students did alongside us, moving all the rocks and boulders chain-gang style about 50m out of the way so we can open three more units under where the rocks had been laying. We also cleaned away all the weeds so we could begin with a clean slate. Today, we managed to accomplish much more site prep than we had thought was possible and we will be able to start marking out the new units tomorrow, in sha'allah. Happily, my two units will have the Iron II architecture removed tomorrow, which will involve bringing a lot of stone up 4m out of the units. Once all that is removed, we will be able to start digging to see what lies beneath. The below photo shows my two units, pre-weeding (they look a lot cleaner now). The stone architecture that is visible is mostly Iron I and II, and there is a huge fortification wall in the background.

Tomorrow has all the elements of another pleasantly tiring and eventful day, so stay posted for what we manage to uncover. We also have a field trip planned to the Desert Castles this weekend, which lie in the central-eastern area of Jordan. I did not manage to take part in this field trip last year as I had a nasty case of food poisoning and spent the entire weekend either lying in my bed or running for the bathroom. I'm optimistic that this weekend's field trip will top last year's...