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.

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?

First Australians?

The current SBS series First Australians is an important and serious attempt to tell the story of the impact of the colonisation of this continent. It is long overdue. That said, I can't help questioning a couple of points, not the least being the title.
Did the indigenous occupants think of their land as Australia? No, judging from the (colonists') historical records and programme interviews, it was simply, but emotively, 'country'. Therefore the very title places the series firmly within settler discourse, particularly with the emphasis on post-contact events.
Thus far, there has hardly been mention of 40-60,000 years of Aborigine settlement and the archaeological remains (yes, I know, I'm biased, and subsequent episodes may redress this failing). Given the details of the terror in Tasmania in the 1800s, perhaps 'Last Australians' would have been a more appropriate title.
My second quibble is with the repeated use of the word 'civilization'. From a historical and academic point of view, I have yet to come across a definition of 'civilization' (and I've just spent a semester tutoring 1st years on ancient civilizations) that can be applied to Aborigine culture. Urban centres, state level government and administration, intensive agriculture, writing systems - none of these major prerequisites for 'civilization' status (however meaningful a concept that is, or is not) were found by Cook and the subsequent settlers.
This is not, of course, to say that Aborigine culture was and is 'uncivilized', nor lacking in complexity. Their art, oral traditions and sensitive and sustainable management of often hostile environments are remarkable and put much of what the 'White Fella' has done to shame. But it somehow seems politically incorrect these days to suggest that these features of their culture do not equate to civilization. This is simply inaccurate.

Kevin07 shows his worth

This week's announcement of decisive and considered measures to buffer Australia, and especially its less well-off inhabitants, from the global financial meltdown, and to reassure the markets about the security of Australian banking system, is timely and impressive.
Kevin07 has been criticized, largely by those with nothing better to do other than generate news when there is none (e.g. BBC correspondent Nicholas Bryant), for inaction and caution, having the temerity to wait for reviews rather than rush to fill soundbites and pander to the media gallery, and daring to travel overseas to put Australia's case on the world stage. He has answered many of those criticisms and should be commended for it. I dread to think what Little Johnny would have done, other than pretend it all wasn't happening, as he did with climate change.

Finn moves!

Here are a couple of vids of the wee monkey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtDEyUIjSMo

A bit rich

Interesting how banks such as the Commonwealth are scrambling to snap up 'bargains', spending hundreds of millions of dollars taking over their smaller competitors in the midst of the global financial crisis when there's (allegedly) not enough money / confidence to go round, and they certainly couldn't possibly afford to pass on fully cuts in interest rates...
I also fail to comprehend how the Aussie dollar can free-fall against the Greenback when the economy here is in relatively good shape, the banking sector is relatively robust and interest rates relatively high, whereas the US economy is going down the toilet, the US banking system is rotten to the core and their interest rates negligible.
I'm sure there's some logically explanation, other than keeping petrol prices at the bowsers here artificially high... answers on a postcard please!

rise and shine

You get to see nearly as many sunrises as a dad, as you do an archaeologist. Some are better than others...

And then some people get to sleep all day