I have like no time because the internet crashed and so we got way less time (i'm kinda mad aout it, but what can I do?) Miss you all!! Keep me updated!
Thurs. 8 May 2008
Well, this week we began excavating! On Monday we laid out the grids, and Tuesday we commenced digging. Two groups of us are working out in the area out in front of a large rock cut façade tomb (different than the tomb we’re excavating). There’s the outline of a large wall there, and something that looks like it may have been a platform. We’re excavating two 5x5 squares along different sections of the wall. We’ve been digging through a lot of red dirt and finding a ton (repeat, a TON) of ceramic... Which we have to wash in lab in the afternoon. Our square, 15A, has yielded so much ceramic material it’s ridiculous. It takes eight of us over an hour to wash all of it. After recording all the different types and colors and styles and patterns, we take various samplings and dump the rest out on the side of the road (It’s almost painful to do, but honestly, the idea of packing up all that ceramic and taking it back to the US and analyzing it, then storing it away to never been seen again, is just silly).
We’ve dug down about a foot along the wall, and it keeps going. So we’ll see what we uncover in the next few weeks!
The other site is a rock cut tomb with 12 cists carved down into the rock foundation. It’s about 4 or 5 feet off the ground and thus you have to climb into it. I’m not working for at least another two weeks or so.
The weather has been pleasantly cool, the sky absolutely clear and blue. Today a small cloud passed over the sun and we were all amazed, haha.
Other than that, life has been spent napping, reading (I’m almost done with my third book, The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale), writing in my journal, talking to my three roommates (you can almost always find all four of us on our beds doing one of these things), playing cards, walking into the village to get various tasty treats, watching movies and episodes of Flight of the Concords and Arrested Development, and talking to little Bedouin girls. Katie and I have made friends with three named Nikra, Raha, and Rasul (I think I mentioned them before). They’re constantly around, talking to us and holding our hands when we walk up the road. Absolutely adorable.
Thurs. 8 May 2008
Well, this week we began excavating! On Monday we laid out the grids, and Tuesday we commenced digging. Two groups of us are working out in the area out in front of a large rock cut façade tomb (different than the tomb we’re excavating). There’s the outline of a large wall there, and something that looks like it may have been a platform. We’re excavating two 5x5 squares along different sections of the wall. We’ve been digging through a lot of red dirt and finding a ton (repeat, a TON) of ceramic... Which we have to wash in lab in the afternoon. Our square, 15A, has yielded so much ceramic material it’s ridiculous. It takes eight of us over an hour to wash all of it. After recording all the different types and colors and styles and patterns, we take various samplings and dump the rest out on the side of the road (It’s almost painful to do, but honestly, the idea of packing up all that ceramic and taking it back to the US and analyzing it, then storing it away to never been seen again, is just silly).
We’ve dug down about a foot along the wall, and it keeps going. So we’ll see what we uncover in the next few weeks!
The other site is a rock cut tomb with 12 cists carved down into the rock foundation. It’s about 4 or 5 feet off the ground and thus you have to climb into it. I’m not working for at least another two weeks or so.
The weather has been pleasantly cool, the sky absolutely clear and blue. Today a small cloud passed over the sun and we were all amazed, haha.
Other than that, life has been spent napping, reading (I’m almost done with my third book, The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale), writing in my journal, talking to my three roommates (you can almost always find all four of us on our beds doing one of these things), playing cards, walking into the village to get various tasty treats, watching movies and episodes of Flight of the Concords and Arrested Development, and talking to little Bedouin girls. Katie and I have made friends with three named Nikra, Raha, and Rasul (I think I mentioned them before). They’re constantly around, talking to us and holding our hands when we walk up the road. Absolutely adorable.
Picture! Nikra on the left and Raha on the right.
We go to bed around 9 or 9:30. We wake up at 5 am, have breakfast at 5:30, and leave for site at 6, usually getting there about 6:30. It’s a fun little hike… Until we have to come back uphill… In the afternoon… After we’re already super tired from swinging hoes and shovels all day (And our site faces east, so there’s zero shade, except in the tomb, which is currently occupied by a couple decades worth of crap [literally] and a decomposing goat). But then the icy cold shower (still no hot water!) I get to take once I’m home feels especially nice =]
We participate in some of the above mentioned activities (especially napping) until lunch. Lunch is our big meal of the day, and it’s delicious. Then we have free time until lab at 4, then free time until dinner at 7:30. Then free time till we fall asleep. Lots of free time.
I’ll lighten this slightly monotonous post and tell you a fairly humorous story—at least it was to us, late at night (meaning 10:30 pm). Last night, as I was snuggled in the warm arms of slumber, a terrific BOOM jerked my eyes open. I sat up and looked towards my left. I saw Brittany sitting on her mattress… But considerably closer to the ground. My first thought: "…Why is Brittany so low?". It was a few moments before my sleep induced brain fully awoke and realized that the board holding up Brittany’s mattress… Had collapsed. As in, fallen through the bed frame. Mattress, blankets, pillow, Brittany, and everything else had followed. The look on Brittany’s face—one of disbelief, shock, and slight irritation—only added to the hilarity of the situation. Needless to say, we did not stop laughing for quite awhile. Tears flowed freely from my eyes. Brittany and Allison’s attempts to fix the bed simply added to it (They did fix it, though Brittany was quite cautious climbing back onto it).
Good fun. Tomorrow we go to Petra! Yay!
Sat. 10 May 2008
Yesterday was quite the adventurous day! I will attempt to keep it short, but it was so much fun!
We went to Petra! Yes! I got to be Indiana Jones for real! We were shuttled by Dr. Johnson to the beginning of the Siq, and then we went in as a group. The Siq—which is the narrow canyon that is used as the entrance to the city—is absolutely awesome. Along the two sides run water channels with clay pipes. The ancient Nabateans were masters of irrigation and bringing water to help their desert city flower and bloom. You come around a corner, and there, peeking slyly though the thing opening at the end of the Siq, is the Kasma, also known as the Treasury, also known as the resting place of the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones.
It’s amazing. Absolutely splendid. It’s beautiful and enchanting and HUGE. All around were people of every nationality you could imagine—Italian, Polish, Pakistani, British, American, French—and Bedouin boys running around, asking if you wanted a camel ride or donkey ride ("Donkey ride to monastery? I give you good price, good picture!"), pictures being taken, everyone vying for the best view. You can climb up and look in the doorway to the see the interior. Sorry, but there is no giant crack where some German chick and the Holy Grain disappeared in the 1930’s, nor is there an old Knight of the Round Table standing in the background (they do, however, sell little Holy Grails carved out of a marble-ish stone). It’s a rather big, square room, with a couple rooms off to the side. But that’s about it. The outside, with it’s gorgeous architecture and delicate reliefs and carvings, is much more interesting.
Then I wandered down to the ampitheatre, passing many Bedouin shops that all sold the same thing: jewelery, kaffiyehs (the headscarves men wear), and little camel figurines that say "Jordan" on them. On one store, there was a little handmade sign that said "PLS if you see someone with out smile give them yours :)". It took me awhile to get past this section, because I kept getting drawn into conversastions. The shopkeepers would ask me where I was from and what I was doing there. When I told them I was with "Doctor Daoud", and they found out I could speak Arabic, there was no getting away. One even invited to eat breakfast with him and his family (which I graciously accepted, since I had missed breakfast). The great thing is, they ALWAYS lowered their prices dramatically when they found out I was with Dr. Johnson. They all know him, most personally, and think he’s wonderful. The fact that I can speak Arabic also added to it. Bargining in Arabic yields many cheaper results. I got a kaffiyeh, with the headband, for 5 JD (the guy said it was because I was his first customer of the day that he did this—The usual price is like 2 JD for the band and 7 for the scarf). I actually got a necklace for free, given to me by a Bedouin woman who I talked to for a bit, and a set of prayer beads from another, older woman, for the equivelant of 50 cents (She also poured me tea and insisted I come sit with her under her little covering by her table of goods, and I had to resist quite forcefully, telling her that I couldn’t drink the tea because of my religion, and that my group was waiting for me). I also bargined a purse from 10 JD down to 4. I kept saying I didn’t want it, and she kept lowering the price. I also impressed the guard at the museum by writing my name in Arabic in the guestbook, and speaking to him for about 5 minutes straight in Arabic (I was kinda surprised myself). And I made friends with a guy about my age named "Eagle" (…I have no idea), and he kept popping up wherever I was.
Just as a funny side note: As American girls—especially young, attractive American girls—we’re hit on a lot by a wide variety of men. Mostly we’re stared at, but other times they get more bold. Like the Pakistani man asking Emily and I if he could have a picture with the "pretty American girls" (to which we obliged). Or being told I should buy a certain scarf because it "would go well with the color of my beautiful eyes". But my favorite is the shopkeeper who was selling scarfs to Brittany. He asked her where she was from, then inquired, "Are you married?" Brittany answered in the negative, and this old Bedouin shopkeeper responded, "Maybe you marry me. Maybe I come to America with you". Brit and I looked at each other incredulously, smiling, and she said, "Ah, so you just want the green card". We left, giggling to ourselves.
Anyway, back to Petra.
It’s actually a lot smaller than I thought it would be. There are a ton of smaller tombs, and if you had the whole day there, I would recommed just climbing up and around all the cliffs and seeing all the little tombs that are hidden back in the Wadis. But we only had about 3 ½ hours, and we work around a ton of little tombs like that anyway, so I just stuck to the big things. Some of those tombs are MASSIVE. And sooo intricate! They were really fun to see! It was also fun to climb around on the Great Temple, which Brown University is excavating. They’ve done a lot of restoration on it, and standing up on a hill examining its lay out, it’s easy to imagine the splendor it once was, before a massive earthquake leveled it to the ground, and thousands of years of sandstorms and flashfloods covered the ruins. Dr. Johnson took some of us up past the Temple of the Winged Lions. We passed a bunch of laid out building and column stones, and he commented "I laid out every single one of those". Dr. Johnson has worked in Petra for the last 30 years, and did most of it on the Temple of the Winged Lions. In the museum, he pointed out artifacts that he had found personally. It was cool. We also took a look at this amazing mosaic floor from the old Byzantine church. Beautiful.
Then we walked home. How insane is it that we’re within walking distance of one of the Seven Wonders of the World? I told you it was in my backyard!
Lunch was ready for us when we arrived home, exhausted (I never said it was a short walk!). Then we had free time until church at 6.
We have church on Fridays here, because that’s the Muslim holy day. Church consisted of an opening prayer, a sacrament song, the sacrament (pita bread on a plate, and bottled water poured into hot chocolate mugs), a spiritual thought, a closing song, and a closing prayer. Afterwards, we all stayed and sang more. The accoustics in the main room are pretty good, and anytime you have a group of BYU students, you can bet all four parts, plus a descant, with be sung. So it sounded pretty good.
Dinner was PIZZA!!!!!! Dr. J got it in town, and we were all quite excited to have some American food =]
Today we got to sleep in, and did some ceramic analysis. w00t!
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