I'm currently on the mid-season break, which consists of 2 days off... most normal people call that the weekend, but it only happens once in 7 weeks on the Pella dig, rather than every 7 days. We've had warning that a cold front is rolling in, which isn't a surprise given that it's been blowing a gale for the past couple of days. Considering the glorious 1st 3 weeks' weather, we can't complain... it is winter, after all, and Jordan needs all the rain it can get. But it'd be great if we could get through the whole season without getting too squelchy - my trench, being the lowest, will turn into a swimming pool / mud-bath.
Given the ominous weather I was relieved to get the trench photographed and planned over the past couple of days... (just because you have mid-season break doesn't mean you don't do any work, if you're silly enough to hang around the dighouse). The 4m wide expanse of cobbles took a while to draw, but the plan looks pretty good and we're now about 25cm above the thick yellow plastered surface and other Late Bronze Age goodness. Given what's coming up already, it's exciting.
Had a pretty busy 3rd week on the finds front - I kept on trying to put the guys / vollies in places where they wouldn't turn up too much, to give me time to detail what had already emerged... but you turn your back and up pops a multi-handled painted krater, about half a metre in diameter, associated with burnt olive pips... and an opium-bulb kournos fragment, and an Egyptianizing trefoil lamp offering, not to mention copper pins from a possible sink hole, beautiful painted Cypriot and Mycenaean painted pottery fragments, 1/3 of a copper bangle, etc. Crazy. Sometimes all I seem to do is write labels.
But it's great - the best trench I've had at Pella, and now that we've dug out most of the Early Iron Age pits, the architecture's starting to make sense. I've even found time to puddle a few more mud-bricks, as part of my side-study on what people were making the bricks out of (yeah, I know - mud... but also other stuff which is where it gets interesting, if you're into that sort of thing).
Most people seem to have recovered from the cold that afflicted us last week - just in time for the next lot of vollies to arrive tomorrow with their lurgies. Honestly, there's sharing, and there's sharing we could do without. But the 1st group were great - really pleasant, dedicated people, and hopefully the next 15 will be too.
Saturday 31 January 2009
Friday 23 January 2009
Pella 2 – the story of more pits
The wind is rattling the branches on the corrugated iron roof (as I type this the night before venturing to a couple of lesser known Decapolis cities and an internet cafe in Irbid). We’ve been so lucky with the weather thus far – it’ll be gutting if it all goes to pot as the pointy end of the season approaches.
I’m currently attempting to ward off the cold both my vollies have had with medicinal nips of Bushmills; typing is also a bit difficult, as one of my fingers has a cut – they take it in turns to get snicks and gashes, and feel like sandpaper, but the thumb I fractured a couple of months ago is holding up ok which is a relief and the rest of the old bod is doing ok. In fact, it’s not as creaky as I feared it’d be. I’m even starting to get a tan and tone up a bit – maybe there’s a few years left in me yet.
I’m pretty lucky as I have the ‘money trench’ this season – about time, considering Birq started me in a silly triangular sliver in ’97 (I think I was the only one who could fit into it) and then I had several trenches of pain (due to rock-breaking). This week turned up a unique Iron Age two-faced idol candlestick holder / incense burner – it’s pretty crude, as opposed to the nude bed figurine, but has a certain charm. Like most of the buckets of pottery I’ve found this season, the idol is covered in a gunky green residue which is universally recognised on digs as ‘potty ware’. Whether people were crapping directly in the pits, or using sherds as a rough form of toilet paper is debatable, but we do seem to have a disproportionate number of broken handles cropping up.
One of the virtues of all the pits I have in my trench is that they give us an insight into what lies below, and it’s pretty exciting... if 10cm thick yellow plaster surfaces are your thing. Apparently they had similar surfaces in the Late Bronze Age (Egyptian) Governor’s Residence which they dug here in the late 80s, and they also appear in the section of the Middle Bronze Age temple just to the east, so there’s little doubt the building I’m digging down to is going to be a ripper when I (my long-suffering workmen) shift the metre or so of mud-brick collapse which is lying on top of it. In the meantime, one of my vollies, Michael, exposed 2 x 2m of stone cobbling today (see photo) which is pretty impressive but going to be a bugger to plan. Like the lower yellow plaster layers, it extends to the west, so it’ll be even more impressive when it’s fully exposed.
News from home is less good – the flat’s been burgled and I’m having hassles with my visa / citizenship. Apparently 20/20 in the ocker Aussie test isn’t good enough. The cops haven’t been able to spare anyone, since the tennis is on – my workmen all agreed that theft was ‘haram’ (sacrilegious) and offered to lynch the buggers who broken in. Gina said they didn’t seem to have taken much – just irreplaceable things primarily of sentimental value, rather than the old tv and dvd player, virused computer and cds. It’s pretty spooky, considering that we’re a 2nd storey flat on a quiet street – it’s not exactly an opportunistic walk-by robber. Such is the society we live in... and people question our safety travelling in the Moslem world.
I’m currently attempting to ward off the cold both my vollies have had with medicinal nips of Bushmills; typing is also a bit difficult, as one of my fingers has a cut – they take it in turns to get snicks and gashes, and feel like sandpaper, but the thumb I fractured a couple of months ago is holding up ok which is a relief and the rest of the old bod is doing ok. In fact, it’s not as creaky as I feared it’d be. I’m even starting to get a tan and tone up a bit – maybe there’s a few years left in me yet.
I’m pretty lucky as I have the ‘money trench’ this season – about time, considering Birq started me in a silly triangular sliver in ’97 (I think I was the only one who could fit into it) and then I had several trenches of pain (due to rock-breaking). This week turned up a unique Iron Age two-faced idol candlestick holder / incense burner – it’s pretty crude, as opposed to the nude bed figurine, but has a certain charm. Like most of the buckets of pottery I’ve found this season, the idol is covered in a gunky green residue which is universally recognised on digs as ‘potty ware’. Whether people were crapping directly in the pits, or using sherds as a rough form of toilet paper is debatable, but we do seem to have a disproportionate number of broken handles cropping up.
One of the virtues of all the pits I have in my trench is that they give us an insight into what lies below, and it’s pretty exciting... if 10cm thick yellow plaster surfaces are your thing. Apparently they had similar surfaces in the Late Bronze Age (Egyptian) Governor’s Residence which they dug here in the late 80s, and they also appear in the section of the Middle Bronze Age temple just to the east, so there’s little doubt the building I’m digging down to is going to be a ripper when I (my long-suffering workmen) shift the metre or so of mud-brick collapse which is lying on top of it. In the meantime, one of my vollies, Michael, exposed 2 x 2m of stone cobbling today (see photo) which is pretty impressive but going to be a bugger to plan. Like the lower yellow plaster layers, it extends to the west, so it’ll be even more impressive when it’s fully exposed.
News from home is less good – the flat’s been burgled and I’m having hassles with my visa / citizenship. Apparently 20/20 in the ocker Aussie test isn’t good enough. The cops haven’t been able to spare anyone, since the tennis is on – my workmen all agreed that theft was ‘haram’ (sacrilegious) and offered to lynch the buggers who broken in. Gina said they didn’t seem to have taken much – just irreplaceable things primarily of sentimental value, rather than the old tv and dvd player, virused computer and cds. It’s pretty spooky, considering that we’re a 2nd storey flat on a quiet street – it’s not exactly an opportunistic walk-by robber. Such is the society we live in... and people question our safety travelling in the Moslem world.
Friday 16 January 2009
postings from Pella 1
Email contact from Masharia, the sprawling town down in the valley. The connection and Arabic keyboard are nearly as fickle as Mr Finn, but they work.
It's a bit of a dusty day here - the Friday market has been and gone, leaving its share of rubbish and effluent on the streets, in addition to the general daily building up - the romantic orient this is not. But it's as good as we have on our doorstep.
The vollies have gone off to the Crusader castle of Ajlun and the Roman town of Jerash, so things are nice and quiet around the dighouse. Needless to say, the long email I've been typing up on my netbook is up in the dighouse - this won't be a regular arvo outing, I don't think, if only 'cos things are pretty full-on on the dig and it gets dark quickly in the arvo and there be dragons in the valley.
The basic daily routine goes something like this: Birq whispers sweet-nothings about us getting up around 5:40am, after 3 loud calls to prayer from 4:50am... we gobble down some 1st brekkers and then hit the trenches until 2nd brekkers at 9am; back out until noon and midday prayers; then lunch at 2pm, after which we sort pottery from the day before (my least fave part of the dig, even more loathed than section drawing). Then I go back into the trench for some workman/vollie free thinking / scratching time, until sunset prayers around 4:30 (a lot of praying and eating goes on).
Then it's a cup of tea / bit of a wash (if it's an allotted wash day - every other one), and any remaining bookwork until sups at 7pm. I'm extremely reticent about doing any work after sups, if only cos fatigue and/or alcohol result in more idiotic mistakes than usual. I'm usually in bed by 8:30 and it all starts again the next morning.
The trench is going well - it measures 9 x 7m and resembles gouda cheese, what with all the pits. Mel said that if it was her trench, she'd top herself... it's not that bad - I generally know what's going on in the NE corner, where there's a 13th century BCE Late Bronze Age room slapped up against the 'palace' tower, and in the SW corner where we haven't dug much so it can't get too complicated. Inbetween, it's on for young and old, as they say. The signs are promising tho, once I get rid of the Early Iron Age pits, which date to the 12th century BCE. I'm sure one of the pits is a robber pit, diving down into the palace; elsewhere, we've found a couple of faience beads, a copper alloy pin, the bottom half of a curvacious bed figurine, the stone pommel from a dagger and other nick-nacks.
The food's been pretty good so far, and the company entertaining. I've got my two vollies back from last season, and most of my old workmen, so we're a pretty tight crew and shugul (work) away while other trenches jabber. Shergi brings me tea periodically, and keeps the hubblybubbly going in case things get too hectic. He's a character.
Right, I'd better go check the other emails. Immigration has cancelled my Aussie visa and are dithering about granting me citizenship... it's just formalities, but needless to say, I'm not best pleased given that I thought I'd sorted all this before I left.
It's a bit of a dusty day here - the Friday market has been and gone, leaving its share of rubbish and effluent on the streets, in addition to the general daily building up - the romantic orient this is not. But it's as good as we have on our doorstep.
The vollies have gone off to the Crusader castle of Ajlun and the Roman town of Jerash, so things are nice and quiet around the dighouse. Needless to say, the long email I've been typing up on my netbook is up in the dighouse - this won't be a regular arvo outing, I don't think, if only 'cos things are pretty full-on on the dig and it gets dark quickly in the arvo and there be dragons in the valley.
The basic daily routine goes something like this: Birq whispers sweet-nothings about us getting up around 5:40am, after 3 loud calls to prayer from 4:50am... we gobble down some 1st brekkers and then hit the trenches until 2nd brekkers at 9am; back out until noon and midday prayers; then lunch at 2pm, after which we sort pottery from the day before (my least fave part of the dig, even more loathed than section drawing). Then I go back into the trench for some workman/vollie free thinking / scratching time, until sunset prayers around 4:30 (a lot of praying and eating goes on).
Then it's a cup of tea / bit of a wash (if it's an allotted wash day - every other one), and any remaining bookwork until sups at 7pm. I'm extremely reticent about doing any work after sups, if only cos fatigue and/or alcohol result in more idiotic mistakes than usual. I'm usually in bed by 8:30 and it all starts again the next morning.
The trench is going well - it measures 9 x 7m and resembles gouda cheese, what with all the pits. Mel said that if it was her trench, she'd top herself... it's not that bad - I generally know what's going on in the NE corner, where there's a 13th century BCE Late Bronze Age room slapped up against the 'palace' tower, and in the SW corner where we haven't dug much so it can't get too complicated. Inbetween, it's on for young and old, as they say. The signs are promising tho, once I get rid of the Early Iron Age pits, which date to the 12th century BCE. I'm sure one of the pits is a robber pit, diving down into the palace; elsewhere, we've found a couple of faience beads, a copper alloy pin, the bottom half of a curvacious bed figurine, the stone pommel from a dagger and other nick-nacks.
The food's been pretty good so far, and the company entertaining. I've got my two vollies back from last season, and most of my old workmen, so we're a pretty tight crew and shugul (work) away while other trenches jabber. Shergi brings me tea periodically, and keeps the hubblybubbly going in case things get too hectic. He's a character.
Right, I'd better go check the other emails. Immigration has cancelled my Aussie visa and are dithering about granting me citizenship... it's just formalities, but needless to say, I'm not best pleased given that I thought I'd sorted all this before I left.
Friday 2 January 2009
Genocide in Gaza
What's the difference between the herding of innocent civilians into concentration camps and their systematic slaughter 60 years ago, and the current imprisonment of Palestinians in Gaza, denial of basic human rights, medical supplies, food, etc. and the Israeli airforce and army's bombardment?
According to the Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary, genocide is the "deliberate & systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group". How else can the Israeli military's actions be defined?
According to the Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary, genocide is the "deliberate & systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group". How else can the Israeli military's actions be defined?
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