So for those of you who didn't know Brad is off on adventures with archeology in Jordan during the 6 weeks Emma and I are in PA. I thought I'd post pictures he's sent along with commentary from his emails. Hope you enjoy!
7 May 2008
Overview of large tombs
Large tomb facade and platform
Fox kits across from Brad's tomb
North cists in Brad's tomb
Outside of Brad's tomb
So, here’s my super-exciting trip so far. Things have been fun once we got to Petra, but getting here was slightly complicated. The flight over was way long. The food was no so bueno. The in flight entertainment was lacking. You had to pay $6 to watch a movie on the Delta flight and all the selections were R except for one kids’ movie, and on the Jordanian flight they had 2 movies that bombed at the box office, and I don’t even know what they were called. So I slept most of the way. 3 people lost luggage, which we finally picked up Mon, and customs confiscated our super-expensive surveying equipment, again which we finally got on Mon. The customs fiasco was basically a manager on a power-trip who said he needed a paper from “the Ministry” but didn’t even know what the paper was supposed to be or which ministry it was supposed to come from, and even though we’ve brought this equipment here a couple times before. Then getting the paper was the biggest bureaucratic goose chase and run-around I’ve ever seen and heard of. Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with the second half of it in Amman. Basically, everyone either didn’t answer, said to call someone else, contradicted themselves, or had no idea what was going on—or some combination of the above. We watched the Antiquities guy here in Petra on the phone for over 30 min with customs and Antiquities in Amman and not have a conversation for more than 2 min. Then, according to those who went to Amman to pick up the equipment, they had to visit with a dozen different people and get signatures from 2 dozen. Yes, some people had to sign it TWICE! In any case, were fine and good times were had by all. We’re staying in the same house that we were in 2005—a large 3-story cinder block house owned by an old friend of the project director. His family does the cooking, cleaning, and laundry for us, and we buy snacks and souvenirs from his son’s shop up the road. We’re in a little Bedouin village of a couple hundred or so with a couple of paved roads and plenty of dirt ones full of trash, donkeys, camels, dogs, goats, cats, their droppings, and tons of super-cute little dirty barefoot kids who know more English than I do Arabic. As for this year’s excavation, we’ve got two areas going right now and a third to open later. The other crews are working in front of a large tomb carved into the sandstone and are clearing off walls that surround a large entryway platform. My crew is excavating a small tomb with 12 cist-graves also cut into the sandstone. The cists are pretty messy, with looters, animals, and Bedouins paying visit through the millennia, but we’ve come down on a good layer of scattered human skeletal remains, rocks, and potsherds near the bottom of the first cist. So, I’ll be supervising the excavation of the tomb and the subsequent analysis of the human remains. 
In front of the Treasury %5B1%5D)
The high-class BMW model (you'll probably need to blow up the picture to get what he's talking about. Look on the forehead of the donkey)
So work continues this week as usual. We’re still plugging along in the same first cist grave that we’ve been in. Things just slow to a crawl when you have to photograph and draw 200+ bones in place and take them out one-by-one. We’ve decided that we’ll experiment with this cist as to methods and practice—which are most efficient—so hopefully the next ones will only take 2-3 days instead of 5-7. I still need to get some photos of our work in progress. In this grave alone, we’re probably dealing with hundreds of bones from 5 or so different individuals—all secondary graves, where they let the body rot clean and then bury the bones or move them around as they need (like Joseph’s bones taken back to Canaan in Genesis). Another good thing is that there’s probably enough bones here for a possible dissertation project at my next school, so we’ll see. We toured Petra on Friday, and I’ve attached some photos. They’re pretty much the same ones I took back in 2005, but now that I’ve got a digital camera, I won’t have to ration them. I also got took some video, but they’re way too big to send on (I think I’d have to keep them to 5 sec clips in order to). It’s been somewhat of a different experience, though, now that I’ve been here before and am a bit more familiar with everything—people, work, culture, food, language, living arrangements, Petra, etc. Last time was quite a culture shock at first. Well, I hope everyone’s well and Mom’s recovering quickly.
Large tomb facade and platform
Fox kits across from Brad's tomb
North cists in Brad's tomb
Outside of Brad's tomb
So, here’s my super-exciting trip so far. Things have been fun once we got to Petra, but getting here was slightly complicated. The flight over was way long. The food was no so bueno. The in flight entertainment was lacking. You had to pay $6 to watch a movie on the Delta flight and all the selections were R except for one kids’ movie, and on the Jordanian flight they had 2 movies that bombed at the box office, and I don’t even know what they were called. So I slept most of the way. 3 people lost luggage, which we finally picked up Mon, and customs confiscated our super-expensive surveying equipment, again which we finally got on Mon. The customs fiasco was basically a manager on a power-trip who said he needed a paper from “the Ministry” but didn’t even know what the paper was supposed to be or which ministry it was supposed to come from, and even though we’ve brought this equipment here a couple times before. Then getting the paper was the biggest bureaucratic goose chase and run-around I’ve ever seen and heard of. Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with the second half of it in Amman. Basically, everyone either didn’t answer, said to call someone else, contradicted themselves, or had no idea what was going on—or some combination of the above. We watched the Antiquities guy here in Petra on the phone for over 30 min with customs and Antiquities in Amman and not have a conversation for more than 2 min. Then, according to those who went to Amman to pick up the equipment, they had to visit with a dozen different people and get signatures from 2 dozen. Yes, some people had to sign it TWICE! In any case, were fine and good times were had by all. We’re staying in the same house that we were in 2005—a large 3-story cinder block house owned by an old friend of the project director. His family does the cooking, cleaning, and laundry for us, and we buy snacks and souvenirs from his son’s shop up the road. We’re in a little Bedouin village of a couple hundred or so with a couple of paved roads and plenty of dirt ones full of trash, donkeys, camels, dogs, goats, cats, their droppings, and tons of super-cute little dirty barefoot kids who know more English than I do Arabic. As for this year’s excavation, we’ve got two areas going right now and a third to open later. The other crews are working in front of a large tomb carved into the sandstone and are clearing off walls that surround a large entryway platform. My crew is excavating a small tomb with 12 cist-graves also cut into the sandstone. The cists are pretty messy, with looters, animals, and Bedouins paying visit through the millennia, but we’ve come down on a good layer of scattered human skeletal remains, rocks, and potsherds near the bottom of the first cist. So, I’ll be supervising the excavation of the tomb and the subsequent analysis of the human remains.
Love,
BRAD
12 May 2008
Bedouin village of Umm Sayhoun, our house is far left
In front of the Treasury
Main Street Petra- shops, temples and palaces on both sides (find the UFO in the sky!)
Overview of upper Petra tombs
The high-class BMW model (you'll probably need to blow up the picture to get what he's talking about. Look on the forehead of the donkey)
So work continues this week as usual. We’re still plugging along in the same first cist grave that we’ve been in. Things just slow to a crawl when you have to photograph and draw 200+ bones in place and take them out one-by-one. We’ve decided that we’ll experiment with this cist as to methods and practice—which are most efficient—so hopefully the next ones will only take 2-3 days instead of 5-7. I still need to get some photos of our work in progress. In this grave alone, we’re probably dealing with hundreds of bones from 5 or so different individuals—all secondary graves, where they let the body rot clean and then bury the bones or move them around as they need (like Joseph’s bones taken back to Canaan in Genesis). Another good thing is that there’s probably enough bones here for a possible dissertation project at my next school, so we’ll see. We toured Petra on Friday, and I’ve attached some photos. They’re pretty much the same ones I took back in 2005, but now that I’ve got a digital camera, I won’t have to ration them. I also got took some video, but they’re way too big to send on (I think I’d have to keep them to 5 sec clips in order to). It’s been somewhat of a different experience, though, now that I’ve been here before and am a bit more familiar with everything—people, work, culture, food, language, living arrangements, Petra, etc. Last time was quite a culture shock at first. Well, I hope everyone’s well and Mom’s recovering quickly.
Love
BRAD
2 comments:
I can't wait to see the pictures of you leaping from the Lion's head to prove your worth to get the Holy Grail. Be sure to post them!
Thanks for sharing Chelsea. That is so interesting and I've ALWAYS wanted to see Petra. I guess I'll do it vicariously through Brad.
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