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!

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...

safe in madaba, jordan

What a week! I have only spent two nights in my house (the same one as last year, an early- 20th centruy house owned by the family of a famous early-20th century poet that I can't remember the name of, but will find out). Previous to this, I was staying at a friend's house, in the beautiful village of Faysaliyya, about 10 minutes drive from Madaba, which had the most wonderful view of sunsets over the Dead Sea and the West Bank. Fantastic!

We have also already enjoyed the traditional, communally-eaten dish of mensev, which is a chicken or goat dish, served over rice, and eaten with the hands. One of my favourtites, especially the roasted pine nuts that are served on top. Very messy, but well worth it.

Deb and I were here for a few nights by ourselves, but the rest of the staff have since arrived and, after a week of hard work moving and setting up house, sorting field equipment, getting permits, renting a car, etc., we are on track.

I gave went to another friend's house and gave the children frisbees and lip balms (thank you Krista from Moody Bees!), which they absolutely loved. They love anything from the west, and they are so much fun to play with. We also had a few pick-up games of soccer, which brought out the locals to watch the "large white people."

I've also been enjoying the most readily-availble beers on hot nights - Amstel (thanks Nancy!). We had a great movie night last night on floor cushions, and with candles. We all fell asleep watching Zoolander, though, thanks to all the hard work this week.

We had our staff orientation and trip to the field this morning. Such a large amount of work to be done, but it will be so worth it. We are opening up five units in the same area that I worked in last year. I will continue work in the two Iron Age units I worked in last year, and an additional three units will be opened, which will begin with the remnants of Nabatean architecture.

I apologize for the largely-disjointed nature of this first post from Jordan, but I am extremely rushed and will make up for it next time. Until then...

let's get acquainted with....jordan

Amidst the madness of packing, I decided to take a minute and acquaint all of you with Jordan. Not that I don't have full faith in you all to know where it is etc., but I went to the bank on three separate occasions last week and on all three, when asking for Jordanian dinars (CDN 1.00 = JOD 0.600), the conversation went like this:

ME: "what is the exchange rate for Jordanian dinars?"
TELLER: "hmmm, Jordanian dinars...it looks like about 0.6...where are they from?"
ME: (incredulous pause) "Jordan"
TELLER: "Great! Where is that?"
ME: (another pause) "The Middle East"
TELLER: "Fantastic! Are you visiting family there?"

Sigh. Not that I couldn't be from Jordan but, people, look at my face: I have the map of Eire written all over it. Sheesh.

Fast facts (all info taken from Lonely Planet _Jordan_ 2006. Map from: www.lonelyplanet.com):

• Land area: 96,188 sq km
• Population: 5,759,000 (July 2005)
• Human Development index: ranked 90th out of 170 of world's countries (Egypt: 120th; Syria: 106th; Palestinian Territories: 102nd; Israel: 22nd)
• Religion: 80% Sunni Muslim, 15% Shi'a Muslim, 5% Christian
• Only 4.5% of Jordan's land is cultivated
• Around 1.7 million Palestinians live in Jordan
• The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth at 408m below sea level
• Over 80% of Jordan is desert, and 95% of Jordanians live in the remaining 20% of land
• Jordan has just 140 cu metres of renewable water per capita per year, compared to UK's 1500, Israel's 340, and the Palestine Authority's 70. Jordan's figure is expected to fall to 90 cu by 2025. Anything under 500 cu metres is considered to be scarcity of water

For a basis of where to locate me on the map (above) I'll be living and working in the town of Madaba. Madaba has a population of 50,000 and is best known for its Byzantine mosaics, which are absolutely incredible. There is also a mosaic school there, for students to learn the production of, and conservation of, mosaics using little pieces of tile called tesserae. The region around Madaba has been occupied for around 4500 years, and is thought to be mentioned in the Bible as Medeba. It's also mentioned on the famous Mesha stele, raised in about 850 BC by the Moabite king Mesha, to commemorate his victory over the Israelites.

Enjoy, and stay posted. The next post should be coming from somewhere in the Moabite desert...