July 13th-Friday - End of the first week at the Dig

Today is Friday and for Muslims it is their Sabbath and they traditionally go to the mosque today.  So our schedule was slightly different.  Our Bedouin workers started the day as usual at 5.15 am, but quit at 11 am instead of 12.30.  So our site director takes this opportunity on Fridays to have us all stop working at 11 am and gives us a tour of the whole Umayri site.  Today each field supervisor gave a detailed report about progress during the week within their field, outlined what they have found and summarized their overall objectives for the season’s dig.  Dr Clark hopes that by the end of this season’s dig the main features at Tall Umayri will display structures at the transition from the late Bronze Age to the early Iron Age 1 era, around 1200 BC.  The field in which I am working contains 4 houses from that time period and we hope that our contribution by opening up that last room will complete the display of the 4 early Iron Age houses.

Stephanie describing our site.  The two excavated areas on the left and far center are already at the floor level of the Iron Age 1 house.  In the foreground is the unexcavated room and clearing that out is our objective over the next several weeks.

The Bedouin workers speak very little English but they are anxious to be friendly and like to interact with us.  We all like to call each other by name, and we know the names of each of the workers.  They found some of our names very unarabic, and instead offered names that made sense to them, rather like someone in France referring to William as Guillaume, or Peter as Pierre.  Murray was too English for them and so I am called Mutwalli.   And just as there is in medicine, archeologists have their jargon.  Instead of just simply saying two legs, physicians everywhere call them bilateral lower extremities.  When I see a line of carefully placed stones all in a straight line and built up evenly, I call it a wall.  Archaeologists call it an architectural installation.

This is the end of our first week and I have had to make several personal adjustments.  The first is getting used to the dust.  It is everywhere, all over the site, and as we pick and scrape, and the sievers sift, the breeze carries it into our faces, eyes, nostrils and clothing.  Nothing escapes.  I have to keep wiping the cloud off my sunglasses so I can see where I am walking.  I keep my camera in my zipped camera bag, and within the bag I have it wrapped in plastic.  Our mid-morning breakfast sandwiches come wrapped and we take care to unwrap them and then eat in the shelter of the tent, preferably on the leeward side.  The expression "to bite the dust” has for me taken on a more literal meaning. 

Another major adjustment has been coping with the urgent activity from wake-up to catching the bus – we have just 45 minutes.  At home it takes me 2 hours from the time I get up until I am in the office.  This gives me plenty of time for calisthenics and back exercises, squeezing fresh orange juice, enjoying a leisurely breakfast, organizing the work that I have done the previous evening, thinking what I have to accomplish today,  getting all my things together and keeping below the speed limit as I drive to work.  Before I climb on board the bus at 5 am for Umayri I have to wake up, get dressed, have a quick bathroom break, eat my breakfast, get hydrated, and check on the absolute necessities without which there would be serious danger to my health or at least comfort.  These are hat, sunglasses, gloves, sun block, 1 and ½ liters of water and lip gloss.  I do all the thinking the night before, and have everything I need for the next day laid out ready to be picked up as I run out the door in the morning to catch the bus.