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.