Brad's Adventure Part IV

2 June 2008
Well, our final week in Petra is here, and it’s laid out like this…. Tue: final day of excavation, Wed: process artifacts and human bone analysis, Thu: field trip to Jebel Haroun and the Tomb of Aaron, Fri: Church, Sat: final processing and analysis, Sun: pack, Mon: travel to Amman , Tue: fly home.
The whole excavation has gone quite well, and we’ve gotten a lot done. We’ll be finishing up the last cist grave in my tomb tomorrow (which seems to be pretty well looted). My major task of the field school, aside from supervising the tomb excavation, has been training and supervising the students in human bone analysis. Each cist grave was dug by a pair of students who are then responsible for the complete analysis of the artifacts found in their cist, from bone (human and animal) to potsherds to beads. Most of the cists contained quite a bit of scattered and fragmented human bone (some near 1000), and so the learning curve for the students has been quite steep. There were probably only 3 or so out of the 24 who had any familiarity with human osteology, and so for each group I had to orient them on the whole process of dealing with and analyzing human skeletal remains (which got quite tedious and repetitive). But to their credit, almost all of the students have worked through the ordeal and become quite proficient at the whole thing (although I still wouldn’t use their data in any real publication or anything). ; )
In fact, it’s been a great training ground for me, as well. I’ve found it to be true with archaeology and other aspects of life, that the best way to learn something well is not only to do it and practice it, but to teach it to others. I definitely have had to be on my toes with all the questions and problems that I get bombarded with each day for hours on end regarding the bones specifically and the archaeological method in general. And after dealing with a few dozen whiny undergrads for the 3rd year in a row, it’s still what I want to do. I guess that’s a good thing.
Congrats again, Nate, on graduation. Nick, happy b-day, again. Hope everyone, especially Mom, is continuing to heal well and take it easy. I’ll either email or call regarding my flight home. We get in about 10:40pm on Tue the 10th.

Love you all—

BRAD

P.S.
Brad posted the following as a reply to a comment but in case you didn't see it here's the new GPS stuff:

"sorry about the coordinate mix-up. i was using a different system. ancient downtown petra is located at 30 19' 47"N 35 26' 24"E. we're working along the large canyon that runs northwest from that, and the bedouin town where we're living is just to the northwest as well."


Brad + Daisy, BFF

driving Miss Daisy (really her name), she was surprisingly easy to ride and control

Dushara block with Dionysius medallion, combining Nabataean and Greek religion

headless lion fountain, water would've run down the channel and out it's mouth

horned incense altar (think Solomon's temple)

resting at a shrine with a dam for a giant cistern

Scott, Holly, & assistant recording a niche

students waiting around before hike

The Soldier's Tomb, our monumental tomb is modeled after it