My Precious Trowel Recovered

Well - clearly all the karma my friends have been sending my way has translated into something good. I finally received my luggage yesterday from Air Canada. I'll be honest...I was amazed I got it. But not without some interesting things happening to it first.

While I was in Jordan, my IPOD broke (all the sand I think toasted it....which is ok, because I wanted to get an IPOD ITouch anyways!). So I put it in my bag to bring home so I could crack it open and see what the insides of an IPOD look like. Well - upon receiving my bag last night....lo and behold....no IPOD.....so the joke is on whoever stole it out of my bag. Gotcha!

Most importantly, however....is the fact that I got my trowel back. I have had that trowel ever since my first excavation in 1988 and aside from all of the other material in my luggage...it was the only thing I was really upset about potentially losing (kinda trivial I know...but all of you archaeologists out there know what I am talking about).

Back Home

I really do have to apologize to all loyal readers of my blog. As you know, my access to the internet in the desert was a bit limited. But now I am home and I will be updating the blog on a more frequent basis with interesting tidbits about my work this summer (pictures and video to come) as well as developments in the world of Archaeology, Classics and History.

Having said all that - I need to get something off my chest. My trip home went flawlessly until Air Canada/Royal Jordanian Airlines lost my luggage. This is the first time I have ever "lost" my bags and I can say that I am very disappointed. This is just the beginning of the saga...so I am sure to have more to say. Bottom line - the person who checked me in at the airport in Amman, decided to only check my bags to Heathrow airport. I advised the person at the Air Canada desk and despite their claims that they would locate my luggage and so on - it seems that I just kept getting "passed along" to the next person - finally arriving in Toronto to find out that the people I spoke to in London basically lied to me. UGH......the bag had all my gifts for my family, my hiking shoes, and so on. But most importantly....it had my TROWEL! The same trowel that I have used on every archaeological project since 1989. Its irreplacable. I am devestated! Anyways, I guess there are worse things that happen....but I am still very much disappointed.

I checked with Air Canada today and so far, no luck. If I don't have my bag by the end of the week...chances are....I never will. Damn! More to come later.

Wind, Wind and More Wind

Greetings all. I am in Amman this morning doing some much needed errands and so have a few minutes to update you all to the happenings at Kharaneh/Azraq. Things are in full swing now on site and we have begun to uncover features. In my area we have come down on what appears to be a huge ash/burn pit or scar. Since I am in Amman today it is up to my teammates to continue to expose the surface of the feature and begin to map its dimensions. Tomorrow we will begin to excavate it - so I'll have more to say on that later. I have a picture of it...but no time to upload - so that will have to come at a later date.

The one thing that I do have to say is that we have been experiencing some rather strong winds...and when I say strong....I mean - its very difficult to sift our dirt as the wind blows the lithics out of our hands...which in a way is great...if they could land in the bag...but alas, it just doesn't happen that way.

Our cook (Ismail) made pizza last night for dinner which was met with great applause and adulation since we are pretty much tired of tomatoes and cucumbers....so this was a much needed change. On the weekend I made everyone my world famous Jerk Chicken...and it seemed to go over well. That was followed up with my now world famous Bananna Fritters....everyone is looking forward to a repeat performance.

Ok, I have to hand the laptop back to Lisa....she has some real work to do....whatever THAT is!!!

Return To Madaba

Well - for once I have been able to provide an update with a little more substance to it - and I am even able to post some pictures. The first is a picture of the "Yo Sushi" bar in Heathrow airport. Its one of those that you sit at and the various dishes pass by on a belt - each dish is in a coloured bowl that has a different price associated with it. You are charged based on the number of bowls you eat. On my way to Jordan I spent about 1.5 hours at this spot sampling the various sushi delights. Actually - I don't like sushi, because for me, its just a wasabi delivery device. Anyways, I had never eaten in one with a conveyer belt delivering the food so I thought I would take a picture. Everyone thought I was such a "tourist"...and in this case, they were right.

Things have been going well on the project. Everyday we get up at 4AM, have a quick breakfast (instant oatmeal for me - see my prevous post on the subject), then head out to site. Its about a 35 minute drive from Azraq to Kharaneh. As a driver of one of the vehicles I am not able to sleep on the way like everyone else - but at least my 4x4 is airconditioned. The other day the temperature was reading 43 degrees at one point. It has been very hot - but that's to be expected. Once we get to site its time to set up our sifts (screens that we pass all our dirt through to find the small artifacts). In the picture I am holding a bit of bone that has some lines etched on to it. There is some debate as to what the nature of these lines are, but they seem to be counting notches in groups of 3 or 4. This bone fragment is over 15,000 years old - so while it may not be a golden cup or other such glamourous object - the fact that somebody was using this that long ago to count something is interesting in its own right.

One of my first tasks this summer was to lay out the excavation grid. This is a picture of Dr. Lisa Maher (the project leader and close friend) putting in the site benchmark. 50 years from now this image will be part of the historical record. The site we are excavating is extremely uniqe for the Epipaleolithic - there is only one or two others in the world that provide the same kind of "window into the past" of this time period. I promised Lisa that this image would be on the back cover of her festschrift when she is famous!

We are excvating in 1x1 meter squares - which for me is unusual, but what the heck. The site has been divided into two areas where we are excavating. Digging is slow going since every trowel swipe turns up a tons of "stone and bone" that we have to sort through and process. Fortunately, the stratigraphy is pretty straight forward. Just yesterady, however, I have come down on what seems to be a pit or a burn scar - immediately complicating things and requiring additional documentation. If anything interesting turns up - I'll let you know.

We generally work until 11:15 when we pack up to head back to Azraq. Our afternoons are filled with processing artifacts, documentation, etc. Eventually we call it a day around 7pm - just enough time for a cold beer and then bed. We are a fairly small crew - only 11 of us, but we all get along and are having fun. As the oldest crew member (ack!). Last night we left Azraq and headed into Amman to see the new Indiana Jones movie. I have a lot to say about it - but I was pleasently suprised by the film and I actually liked it. It wasn't as good as the others - but what can you do! Harrison Ford is looking pretty old...but he's a tough old dude and if I looked half as good as him when I am 50, I'll be happy!

Winds on site have been inconsistant, but I did have the chance the other day to launch my kite and snap a few quick pics. I have attached them to this post so that you can get a sense of what the site actually looks like. I hope to get some more pictures of the site uploaded in the future - provided the wind keeps blowing...and I am sure it will.

I am in Madaba now - the town I have been working in for the past 10 years and its a bit like "coming home". People on the street see me and recognize me and say hi...its great. I am off in a few minutes to go for a swim in the hotel pool and then to do some shopping. We will be returning to Azraq at 4pm this afternoon and then its back to work tomorrow morning at 4am. The next week of excavations should be interesting - as we dig deeper...more interesting artifacts and deposits are sure to appear. Stay tuned.

Stone and Bone

Greetings all. Again - apologies for not uploading any images. I am still having intermittent access to the internet here in the desert (suprise)...so bandwidth is at a premium. I will be in the town of Madaba this Thursday/Friday - so hopefully I'll be able to do a proper update at that time. For now - here is a quick update.

Excavation is proceeding slowly as we all get used to the site and the nature of deposits. One thing I can say about this Epipaleolithic site is the fact that I have never seen so many lithics in one place...the ground is riddled with them and I am hoping to get a picture to you soon. We have finally finished cleaning operations in our various fields of excavation and have begun to excavate down. Today we found a bit of "mother of pearl" which had been carved to have "teeth" along one side. Basically, someone about 15,000 years ago was at the Mediterranean Sea - brought this bit of shell home to Kharaneh (or traded for it) and fashioned it into a piece of jewellery. When you think of it that way - its pretty amazing. As for the other artifacts coming out of the ground - the title of this post says it all - stone and bone.

I had to come into Amman today to pick up some other crew members - its about 1.5 hours from Azraq and along the way I picked up a couple of army hitchikers. Its the thing you do here - those who don't own cars, bum rides from everyone else. It was nice to have someone along for the ride, we were able to communicate in my broken Arabic and his broken English. Like all Jordanians, once he found out I was from Canada he immediately responds with "I want to come to Canada"....well, why wouldn't he....Canada is a great place. I warned him about the cold.....but that had little effect, so who knows?

I have to go - heading back to Azraq via the Jordan Plastic Factory to pick up some red crates for storage.....allways an adventure!