this is what post-christmas blues looks like: the yucatan

I'm nothing if not consistent in my large gaps between blog entries. After the madness of the Christmas and holiday season, we (my sister and roommate and I) needed a break. So we decided to head to the Yucatan peninsula.

How did we arrive at this particular location, when we have the whole world to choose from? We did what I suggest anybody do when they are feeling a bit overwhelmed during the planning of their next adventure: make a list, in order of priorities, of the things each person in the adventuring party is looking to get out of the trip. In our case, we were looking for somewhere warm, with wonderful beaches, cultural history, jungle, off the beaten track, non-pampered, inexpensive, and not too far away, as we only had 11 days for the trip. The Yucatan absolutely answered all of these needs for all of us.

We flew into Cancun, where we had pre-booked a room in The Chacmool Hostel. The hostel was inexpensive, came with a free beer, had swings in the associated bar, was clean, and within walking distance from the bus station. By the way, don't take a taxi from the airport to the Cancun bus station; you'll be charged about US$30.00 by the tourist-spoiled cabbies. Instead, opt for the free shuttle to the other terminal, where you can catch a bus to downtown Cancun for about US$3.00. Incidentally, once we had learned of this gouging trend in the high-density tourist areas of Mexico we stuck to buses for almost all our traveling, and found it comfortable, fairly reliable, fast, and inexpensive. We headed out for a dinner of tostadas and cokes in the plaza, where lots of other Cancun-ers were hanging out, playing music, and relaxing. Always good to flock to where the locals are.

The very next day, we headed south to Playa del Carmen, where we were immediately frightened by the hoards of almost-entirely American tourists, and hopped a ferry to the nearby island of Cozumel, in the Caribbean Sea. I must admit, I was completely floored by the amount of cruise ships docked there - I counted at least twelve HUGE vessels. I then remembered reading that Cozumel has about 3 million visitors per year, almost none of whom actually stay on the island, as they return to their cruise ships in the evening.

We found inexpensive and central accommodation in a hotel for about US$9 each per night. Across the street, we rented a 1960s VW Beetle and headed out to the eastern side of the island, stormier, but with the most wonderful azure water, and flour-like sand. Oh yes, and we also splurged on two huge Mexican blankets...very heavy...at the beginning of our trip...which we then lugged around for the next week and a half.

The next day, I did some diving off the west coast of the island and saw some great fish and corals, right on the reef, in about 15m max of water. There is a poignant concrete memorial to a diver with a floating and waving crucifix, sunk in the sand next to the reef. The water was warm-ish, though I was feeling cold as we were finishing up the 2nd dive, as the sun was going down. But it was a beautiful experience to ascend while the sun was just going down behind the horizon.

After that, we headed south to a backpackers' Mecca: Tulum. We stayed at the Weary Traveler hostel, which is absolutely fantastic, though if you like a bit of quiet request a private room in their secondary building, which is across the street. Breakfast is included, as is a free shuttle 4x daily to the fantastic beaches nearby, and the travelers are international and very friendly. Tulum acted as a great base for cenote exploring (with the knowledgeable and friendly folks at the Cenote Diving Centre), and I completed my first cavern dives, inside a many-chambered cenote. There are loads of wonderful rock formations, some large catfish, and the wonderful experience of being able to see sneaks of blue light coming through the cenote opening. Notably, the ruins at Tulum, while well-consolidated and laid out, are not the largest or most beautiful Mayan ruins. The location, however, directly on the Caribbean and with access to some lovely private beaches, is what makes the site unique and memorable. For the view alone, it is worth a visit.

After Tulum, we debated continuing south and heading for Belize and Caye Caulker but, with a day of travel needed in each direction, we decided to save that for another trip, and instead headed northwest to the Spanish colonial-styled town of Merida. Here, we stayed in the best hostel yet, the Nomadas Youth Hostel, which we strongly recommend (central, inexpensive internet, wonderful setting, quiet, breakfast included). Merida gave us a chance to get away from the beach crowds and experience the colonial history of Mexico. There are some great pieces of very fierce and direct artwork of the suppression of the Mayan people by the Colonialists in the public buildings, especially the Palace. There's also a great market that the locals use (it opens at 03h00) for their groceries and household items. Definitely worth a visit.

After Merida, we longed once again for the beaches, so we struck out west, via a trip to Chichen Itza, the a large Mayan city, absolutely crawling with tourists and Mexican vendors. If you must go to this site (and I would actually recommend Tikal in Guatemala much more, as it has retained the sense of discovery and grandeur that the management of Chichen Itza has sterilized out of the site), then get there as early as possible, to avoid both the heat and crowds.

After a few hours at Chichen Itza, we hopped on a bus and headed back to Cancun, where we stayed only long enough to grab a small ferry to Isla Mujeres, just off the coast of Cancun. Though this little island still has its fair share of tourists, it is nothing near to the throngs of slow-moving foreign shoppers and diners in Cancun. We stayed at the Poca Hostel, right on the beach and with loads of hammocks and international travelers. Isla Mujeres allowed us to just relax, work on our tans, each fresh food, read, drink beers, and relax, before we had to head back to the madness of Cancun and our flights home.

A couple of end notes: after congratulating myself and my parasite-susceptible stomach and intestines for not catching anything while backpacking around the Yucatan, I treated myself to a meal at the Cancun airport, while waiting for our flight home, at the American chain Johnny Rocket's. Let me tell you, halfway through the flight to Phoenix, the food poisoning that this, ahem, restaurant had given me was manifesting itself in all sorts of unpleasant ways...and continued to do so through our flight change in Phoenix, our flight to Seattle, and our 2 1/2 hour drive north to Vancouver. Lesson learned: what street meat didn't accomplish, the American fast food chain did.

Also, we flew into the out of Seattle-Tacoma airport, instead of Vancouver, to save ourselves a couple of hundred bucks or so. If you can afford to fly out of Vancouver, I would recommend avoiding going into the United States at all. My passport, with the Arabic stamps from Jordan, was closely scrutinized and questioned, the line-ups were long, we were thoroughly searched at the airport, and we had to re-check our bags and go back through security when we were arriving in Phoenix on the way back home. It was a huge hassle, and being around an organization (the United Stated Border and Customs) that is largely paranoid, scared, suspicious, and aggressive (rightly or wrongly) is nerve-wracking. Your choice. At least the Canada Customs rep at the border was delighted to see us and welcome us back from a fantastic vacation.

when the weather outside is frightful, and you're looking for something delightful...

Though archaeology-related events and topics may have slowed down slightly for the Christmas season, there's still holiday inspiration to be found in the ancient history.

A prime example is this recipe (courtesy of the folks at the Archaeological Institue of America) for:

Mayan "Hot" Cocoa on the Rocks Cocktail
Serves 4

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper or to taste
4 ounces chocolate vodka
Cinnamon sticks, for garnish

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper with 1/4 cup of water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Whisk until the mixture is smooth and all the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool.

Combine the cooled syrup and vodka in a cocktail shaker and fill with ice. Shake until very cold and strain into four ice-filled glasses. Garnish each with a cinnamon stick and serve.

Though you can certainly enjoy without alcohol, I prefer the non-virgin variety. Call you arch-list friends in out of the cold (the ground's too frozen to dig...unless you're way up north with the O&G), make them a drink, and swap adventure stories.

here i am...i was hiding the whole time (more photos are on the way)

Holy moley...I wasn't really hiding, but I definitely seem to have fallen off the edge of the planet. Well, what has happened since July of this year? Quite a bit, some of it archaeology-related, some of it not archaeology-related, but all of it interesting, at least to me.

First things first, to bring you, faithful reader, up to speed about the end of the field season in Jordan.

The majority of the staff and myself, having deposited the students safely and with finality on the flight home (the trip to the airport included a multi-car convoy to the airport, one of which I was driving, of which I managed to blow a tyre, bringing said convoy to a stop in the middle of the desert and allowing all our Jordanian friends a prime opportunity to some their considerable pit-stop abilities), were tuckered out and immediately made plans for recuperation from the season.

Now that we were free, we headed south to Aqaba (on the Red Sea, at the convergence of Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, and Jordan) for some much-derserved R&R. A Jordanian colleague had very kindly and generously offered her apartment to us while we were in Aqaba, so we had a very nice base for our adventures...and a nice air-conditioned space to hide in, when we weren't moving very slowly to the air-conditioned car. Did I mention that the temperature managed to hit 54 degrees Celsius? Seriously. The only way to survive is the aforementioned slow-movements, coupled with large amounts of very cold water...

...and scuba diving! Thankfully, when not in the car or the apartment (or some of the nice restaurants or shops in Aqaba), I could be found deep in the Red Sea, with a colleague of mine who also likes to dive. I decided to work on my Advanced Open Water PADI ticket while in Aqaba - and completed it! I did a deep dive, a night dive, a navigation dive, peak performance buoyancy, and a - wait for it - wreck dive to a 80m long Lebanese freighter that had been sunk by King Abdullah (an avid diver) in the '90s as an artificial reef.

Our Dive Master was a lovely Jordanian man, who happened to be from Madaba (the town we were based in for the field season) and, small town that it is, it turned out his sister ended up giving me my traditional end of season manicure and pedicure the day that I flew back to Vancouver. Small world.

In addition to our Dive Master being a great instructor (he helped me to completely overcome my fear of taking off my mask underwater, putting it back on, and clearing it), he also had BACON. Now, to most of you readers, this might not sound remarkable, except for the fact that Jordan is a Muslim country and, as such, pork products are not to be found in every market. As some of you may know, I am addicted to bacon. When I heard that my new friend had frozen slabs of bacon in his apartment, I drove him there, waited outside in the dark while he collected bags of the goods, and drove him to our apartment, where we all sat together and enjoyed smoked and cured contraband, cold beers, and vegetables. A really great night.

The drive back to Madaba, now that we were relaxed and fed and watered, took us through some of the driest climes I have ever been in, back up through the region of Wadi Rum. We took the road back into Madaba that brought us right beside the Dead Sea, well-timed (accidentally) to be at sunset.

When we arrived back in Madaba, all our friends there were happy to see us, and plans began for leaving and heading back to Canada. The night I left, my friend had not only persuaded his sisters to cook a large meal of mensef (rice, goat, goat milk, eaten by hand off a shared platter on the floor), but had also persuaded his cousin to lend him his old '80s green diesel Mercedes, for me to drive to the airport. What a treat! It was pretty exciting to be driving through the desert in another convoy, driving this huge beast of a vehicle, and it was a wonderful and thoughtful gift.

Once at the airport, there were lots of tears (mostly mine), and stalling at the gate. It is so hard to leave all our Jordanian friends at the end of the season. They welcome us fully into their lives, homes, and famillies, and they are what makes the experience so special. They still believe in the Bedouin principles of hospitality and generousity, and the Western world could certainly benefit from the lessons they have to teach.

Since arriving home, things have been busy, busy. Mostly it has been professional, as I have begun a new career and a new professional phase, which I hope will actually complement - and not supersede - my work as an archaeologist in both Canada and abroad. I received a job offer to work as a Historical Research Consultant soon after arriving home, and have fully immersed myself in this job. Without going into details, I am more than satisfied with this new position, as it answers a few needs I have found I need of late: it helps under-represented people, I can see the results of my work almost immediately, and it is part of what I hope is a changing trend in how people are treated.

I have also moved and seen my family grow since I arrived home, which proves that life really is what happens when you're making other plans. A very exciting time, and more exciting times to come, I hope.

My next adventure abroad will take me back to Central America in the New Year, for a trip around the Yucatan to Mayan sites and some more diving...I'll keep you posted.

the end of it all

Well, faithful readers, I must admit that I have not been much of a faithful poster, though I feel secure that my reasons are good enough to excuse this slip-up. The end of the season is always a bit of madness, finishing excavations, working with students on their notebooks, shutting down the houses, etc.

I just came back from a much-needed mini-vacation in Aqaba, on the Red Sea, where Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt all meet. It was absolutely fantastic.

I head home in three days and, once I am home and over feeling both elated to be home with family and friends, yet very sad to have left Jordan, I will post pictures and tales.

keeping up with the fshekats...er, joneses

Another ten days, another ten crazy tales...well, I'm not exactly sure how many crazy tales there are, but there certainly are a few.

The craziest part is certainly how quickly time is flying by. Our mid-season break came and went over a week ago, I am closing up the two squares that I worked in both this season and last, and am getting ready for final top plans and balk drawings (already almost finished), and taking final photos. Whew! Where has the time gone?

The mid-season break was a tremendous success...even more fun than last year, and those of you who were here last year know that is a real feat.

On Friday, June 29, we left for Petra (now on the list of "Seven Wonders of the Modern World", most deservedly), via detours to Karak (a wonderful Crusader castle with the most impressive example of a glacis I have ever seen - break out Wikipedia for that one, it's well worth it), and Shobak castle, which is probably my favourite castle that I have ever been to, mainly because of it's "uninstitutionalized" preservation. Let's put it this way: you would never visit a Heritage site in Canada where it was still accessible to crawl down poorly preserved steps inside the castle, in the pitch black, without safety rails, to pop out down the mountain, about 400 steps down. Needless to say, I packed a lamp in my bag and we played an MP3 version of the "Indiana Jones" score as we descended...super tacky or super cool...? Definitely the latter.

We stayed that night in a hotel in Wadi Musa, a town just five minutes from the gates of Petra. That night, we prepared for our day in the former Nabatean capital by going to "The Cave Bar", a converted 2,000 year-old Nabatean tomb, for some drinks, argileh, and dancing with the locals. Back to the hotel, a swim, a great shower, and early to bed in preparation for...

...Petra! This was my second time there and, truly, I think I could visit one hundred times more and still be impressed and find new things to discover. A little background: Petra, the "Rose Red City" is the Nabatean capital of a people who ruled over the Trans-Jordan region over 2,000 years ago, controlling trade in the region and developing engineering feats such as dams, extensive drainage and supply, and wonderful architecture built directly into the sandstone cliffs surrounding their capital. By 106AD, they had become annexed by the Romans. All the writings we have about the Nabateans, to date, is from the Roman period and is written by the Romans.

We ran in as early as possible, quickly passing the 1km to the beginning of the Siq ("sook"), and then another 900m to the Treasury, of Indiana Jones III fame. After sitting there and resting for a while, listening to the ornery camels, and watching the other early-bird tourists come trickling out of the narrow mouth of the Siq, we headed up to the Monastery, pausing to grab some donkeys to take us the 900+ stairs to the top (cheeky, I know, but I climbed it myself last year and, to be honest, I preferred walking, both because of the guilt, and the extreme terror as the donkeys all seem to prefer clinging to the shoddy stairs with their miniature hooves than walking in the centre of the path).

After lunch, we climbed high above and behind the Royal Tombs, along sandstone stairs worn to veritable chutes, and eventually following cairns to the edge of a cliff high above the Treasury. This place is definitely one of my happy places. No one else around, the tourists far below and forgotten, and a real sense of the enormity of the city and the topography. The sand was blazing hot, and we carefully made out way back down and out of the city, after some more pictures at the Treasury. The night was spent at the Movenpick hotel, listening to live music, smoking argileh, and watching fireworks from the roof.

The next day, we headed to Wadi Rum, where we picked up some Jeeps and a Bedouin guide and headed out into the desert for a rough and tumble tour of the region and the dunes. The highlight? Our guide let me drive! Pretty fantastic. I think he could see me sitting antsily in the front seat. Obviously, I jumped at the opportunity to shoot along small dunes and soft sand tracks with the others in the back. Too much fun.

After Wadi Rum, we headed to Aqaba for a few hours of shopping (my bartering skills are getting really good, I have to admit) before heading back to the bus and the long ride home.

Speaking of long ride home, it became us being lost in the desert near the Wadi Arbah - read: in the middle of nowhere. As it was Canada Day, we spend the next 3 hours roaming around the desert by the highway, looking at dead goats, rolling around in abandoned tyres, and singing songs (including 'Oh Canada' of course) as the sun went down in a beautiful sunset. When dark came, the military showed up in a pick-up truck with a huge automatic gun of some type mounted on the back with sandbags. Evidently, they had heard a bunch of giant white people were by the edge of the highway in the middle of nowhere, obviously dehydrated and delirious as they were dancing and singing all over the place and not looking the least bit put out, and so they showed up to protect us, though from what we don't know.

Unbeknownst to everyone by myself and one other person, our workmen were back in Madaba, suits on and food and tea at the ready, to surprise us with a Canada Day party. We had to call and disappoint them, but they understood. We arrived home eventually, very weary and ready for bed, but glad of the adventures.

The next day we even managed to have the surprise Canada Day party. We all had a great time, eating and dancing. Definitely one of the best Canada Day's ever.

And now, work continues. I have started teaching the students object drawing, which is a lot of fun, though I am a bit rusty. I am honestly never so busy as I am when in the field, whether it is working, catching up on paper work, meeting with students, hand washing laundry, running to the Internet, finding postcards, going to great mensef meals. Don't get me wrong - I'm certainly not complaining. Simply put, I love it.

another whirlwind moabite week

The first thing you should all know before you read about all the activities of the past week is that most of them occurred in weather that was often 51 degrees, 44 degrees in the shade. The trick to not dying? Move very, very slowly, and drink water constantly, every five minutes or so. Then it's no problem, believe it or not.

Alright, let's begin at the beginning and come up to today.

Something I forgot to add to the last post regarding out trip to Amman (see the previous post for details): I forgot to mention that we also went to the King Hussein Mosque. I really enjoy the architecture and feel of mosques, and have visited quite a few in different places in the world, but this one stood out, not for the architecture (though it was certainly beautiful), but because of the covering that was provided. Most mosques require that all visitors dress conservatively, namely long pants and long-sleeved shirts for men and women, and a head covering for women, but this is the first mosque I have visited where they required that all the women wear full robes with little hoods. Though I know it is an inappropriate comparison, it was like we were at a black-tie KKK cross-burning. No guff. Not to mention that mine was very restrictive for my long strides, and could have used a slit right up the side. Again, inappropriate, but very accurate.

The work week went well and, work wise, we are making terrific headway and I hope to be able to close excavations in the Iron Age section of this part of the Tell for good in about a week, not including mapping, cleaning, etc. The pits are getting much too deep, and I am a bit worried about the safety of the students and, to be honest, myself. The balks are almost 10m tall in places, and are kind of sketchy. And, the access and egress is wobbly at best, attested by my fall down the boulder stairs last week, a stairs which I kindly donated a chunk of my shin and shoulder to. I'm nothing if not a giver.

Alright, here it is, the information you have all been waiting for: The Wedding. On Thursday afternoon, we decided to skip lab and head to the wedding of the brother of a close Jordanian friend. All us female staff (five in total) got dolled up in glitz (the four others) and an electric blue tube top (me), then layered conservative covers over top and headed to the compound of the family of the groom. As soon as we arrived we were ushered onto one of three fringe-laden buses to head to a town about 20 minutes' drive away to collect and primped and frightened-looking bride. The procession to her house, I should mention, included about thirty additional cars of family members, and paid not a whit of attention to stop lights, emergency vehicles, or other cars. It did, however, care a lot that we made a lot of noise and clapped until our hands were numb. Good anthropologists that we are, we obliged.

Once at the bride's house, all the women went into a small room where the music and drums continued. The bride was sitting ramrod straight on a giant green-upholstered chair at the front of the room. Eventually, after a very hot 15 minutes, her male family members came in and "gave her away", by giving her kisses and gold jewelry. Then, we were all ushered outside again, where handguns were fired off in celebration (they scared the bejeesus out of me, I won't lie, especially when they were about one metre from my left ear and unexpected), and we all jumped back into the vehicles for the procession back to and through Madaba to the compound that we started at.

Once back there, the women were all immediately herded up to the tented roof, past the tent in the yard where all the men and a live band were. Up on the roof, the real fun began. We all stripped down to our super-fantastic-Jordanian-style outfits and got to dancing to the huge ghetto blaster that had been hauled up to the roof by some unfortunate young male family member. The dance floor consisted of the area not being taken up by the 200 or so women and children on the roof, mostly in front of the bride (who had managed to arrive just before us, complete with green chair, which whizzed by our bus en-route, precariously balanced in the back of a small Mitsubishi pick-up, held in place by two young males, who were attached to the outside of the pick-up garbage-man-style), and along the space cleared through the crowd as the aisle to the bride. An 11-year old girl immediately spotted my super sweet Western dance moves and showed me, in no uncertain terms, how to really wiggle my hips and twist my wrists, much to the delight of the viewers watching the giant white woman in the electric blue tube top trying to dance.

Eventually, after a couple of hours of dancing with the students (who all came) and staff and locals, the groom and his male family members came up to take the terrified-looking bride away. The mad rush for coats and head scarves was unlike anything I have ever seen before when the men came up, and saw me still dancing in my tube top, with some of our male workers who had come up, until I remembered to cover up and my friend gave me my cardigan. It brouught a mixture of amused and annoyed looks from some of the women, but the guys didn't seem to notice, so no harm, no foul.

With the bride gone, the party quickly dwindled in size, and we headed home to have a couple of beers on the patio.

The following day, Friday, I drove to Amman to get some groceries for all at the local Safeway, which was a field trip in itself, then headed to meet the groom and bride for a big Jordanian mensif lunch, at which the bride looked much more happy and relieved. The rest of the afternoon was spent smoking argileh and relaxing until about 23h30, when I headed to the airport to pick up the last of the staff members to arrive - now we are complete!

On Saturday, we headed to Pella (a great site down in the Jordan valley with evidence of almost every occupation phase for the region), Jerash (a huge Roman site about 2 hours north of Amman, which has a huge music festival every summer), and the castle of Ajloun, built by Saladin's nephew. I visited all the same sites except for Pella last year, and they were just as amazign this year. Pella was incredibly hot, but it is buiilt around a natural spring, so we saw some much-missed greenery and grass. There is also an amzing rest house there, overlooking the valley, where we went for some cold drinks. It was an extremely hot day (uncomfortable by 09h00).

Back at work, on Monday, I went to the nearby town of Ma'in to survey. It was a great break from site and really enjoyable, as I love to survey. We found a few cisterns and carved bedrock, which is what we have mostly been finding out that way, along with a ton of pottery from several occupation phases.

This weekend, we head to Petra, Aqaba, and Wadi Rum for our mid-season (already!) long weekend. We're all really excited...Petra is definitely one of my happy places. I'll post photos next week, so come back and check them out...

this post is brought to you by...desert castles, stratigraphy, arak, and hydration

What has happened since last I posted? Lots, to be honest.

Work-wise: we are going through stratigraphy, though not as quickly as I would like (to be fair, we have less students per unit this year, and I had to give a bit of leeway the first couple of days). But, we've gotten the lead out. Yesterday was the official "please give me all your small tools, especially trowels, and I will give you only big picks, gufas (baskets made out of recycled tyres, sued to haul dirt and rocks), and hoes in return day". I think it was a big success, and I have decided to celebrate how much fun it was by making most days the same. I'm such a slave driver but, as I promised the students, the quicker we dig the better the stuff that we find.

Archaeology-wise (a section mostly dedicated to Andrew): we have removed the IR II pillars (both of them) in (unit) U4, which was a much longer ordeal than I expected, but it is done, and the sediment from below is all down. There is a beaten earth floor in the SE quadrant which cannot extend past the continuation of a N-S IR I wall running into the southern balk. The area where we uncovered the amphorae (very large, 1.5m tall storage jars) is not being touched for now, and the subsidiary balk that area shares with V3 is being kept as a balk for the time being (about 60cm wide) for safety, as we excavate to the east of it, in V3. In V3, the IR II pillars have also been removed, and the IR II/squatter debris to the north is on its way out. We are excavating down to the same level as the amphorae stratum in U4, then excavating the section in U4 and V3 (which will join as there is no wall separating them) concurrently. Today, in V3, we excavated an ashy layer, clear small boulder/large cobble tumble, with the remains of large pithoi below, with associated clay (to support them). Tomorrow: more deconstruction of IR II architecture, and more mad digging. (Andrew: I will take photos of the units to date tomorrow morning and post them asap.)

Health-wise: I feel great! Huzzah! Sadly, the same cannot be sad of all the students, though most are fine. We have had a couple of cases of dehydration, especially after the field trip to the Desert Castles (more below). Also, one of my students had a boulder drop onto her finger, bruising the joints pretty badly and cutting her a bit. I tape it to her ring finger 2x a day, and it seems to not be infected, so I'm pleased.

Fun-wise: the Desert Castles (in the central-eastern area of the country) were amazing. I missed that same field trip last year due to a horrid case of food-poisoning. We visited the Citadel and Archaeological Museum in Amman, which shows the material evidence of occupation in the area since the Neolithic, and houses some restored plaster figurines (some of the earliest 3-D depictions of humans) from Ain-Ghezel, which were definitely my favourite, along with some pages from the Dead Sea scrolls (no photos of these, sadly).

As for the Desert Castles themselves, we visited the UNESCO site of Qasyr Amra, famous for the wonderful non-Islamic tradition frescoes covering all the interior surface. The "little castle" was built by Wahid I, possibly, and was perhaps used as a retreat during the 7th century. Absolutely gorgeous, though sadly in need of serious restoration.

We also visited Azraq, a small fort-like place made from black basalt, and most famous in recent times as the place Lawrence of Arabia wintered in 1917-18, during the Arab revolt. He complained that the "roof leaked" apparently. I could see why: all the stone roof beams were originals. The original single-slabbed basalt door was also really impressive.

I have also gotten my house into the habit of smoking argileh for hours on end, though it took little persuasion and now they all just run with it, along with cold Arak (like Sambuca, served with cold water). One of the students is Lebanese, and he was thrilled to see I had a small stash of Arak in my room (thanks, Andrew). Now he provides the bags of nuts, and we enjoy a drink, Middle-Eastern style.

Time off work is spent either thinking about work, planning logistics are around the house, sneaking away for a drink or a cheese sandwich at the Ayola, and reading. All good times. The crew is fabulous, and the students are fantastic, so it makes for fun and relaxing evenings and lab time (2 hrs every afternoon when we all get together and wash pottery and bone, have pottery readings, catch up on the excavations, etc.).

On Friday, almost all of the staff sneaked away to Amman and went crazy in the Mecca Mall, a huge Western-style shopping mall with 5 floors. We were on the hunt for racy tops for the traditional Jordanian wedding coming up this weekend, for the brother of Mashur, Sile, and his "habibi", Maram, with whom I have been made to speak broken Arabic on the phone every time Sile sees me. All the women will be segregated to the roof in racy clothes which are hidden under long robes, to dance around to the wee hours of the morning to Arabic pop on a ghetto blaster, hopped up on tea and Coke, while the men do the same in a tent in the yard below. Don't worry, I'll take photos.

Other than that, we are headed to Jerash this weekend, and we have a full week of digging before then. Keep the comments and emails coming!