July 16 – Joys of Digging

Stephanie our Field Supervisor has done a careful survey of the progress in our field so far and has discussed it with Drs Clark and Bramlett. She then reviewed our goals for this season’s dig, and it became quite clear to all of us that although we have done well so far, we still have an a long way to go before we complete our target – completely excavating and displaying the remaining architecture of the Iron Age 1 House. So the message was – keep on digging. Just after we had started for the day Stephanie helped me remove a large rock on a side wall, and I heard a sudden “Oh”, and she immediately dropped the rock and stepped back. She had disturbed a large scorpion. As we cleared the rock away it stood up and arched its large menacing tail. Most scorpions in Jordan are venomous, including, as my Jordan reference book informed me, this one. The species that we encountered grows to about 10 cm long, and our specimen was at least that size, but its venom is not as serious as another variety of scorpion named in the book as the deathstalker. So we didn’t play with it, but rather let one of our friendly Bedouin workers take good care of it for us.

A nasty looking specimen

Then it was on with the job. The going was quite heavy so we rotated assignments throughout the morning – first digging, then carrying the guffahs with either rock to the dump or dirt to the sieve, and finally a spell looking for “finds” at the sieve. We retrieved the usual load of pottery shards, and I was surprised at the large number of lithics from our site.  A lithic is the term used to describe any stone tool, and what I retrieved were flakes of flint that had been chipped off a larger stone called a chert. People used these sharp pieces of flint from the earliest time right through into the classic ages, and there are records of these flint tools being used in Jordan up to the 19^th century. But I did not discover anything else of interest at today’s dig. But it was quite breezy at the dig site, and although we welcome the breeze when it is so hot working without shelter out in the sun, it does inflict on us a steady dose of flying dust.

The actual process of digging requires a small trowel in the left hand and a light one-handed pick in the right. We were given a lesson by Kent Bramlett on our first day at the dig site on just how to dig effectively but safely, and we had to demonstrate reasonable skill in using both the pick and the trowel. We were instructed to strike with the pick 4 or 5 times, aiming for a depth of no more than 2 cm. Then the loosened dirt should be scraped away with the trowel as you look for buried treasures. When the dirt is so packed that it requires more effort to loosen it we have to be careful not to use too much force with the pick, otherwise we may damage some artifact buried in the soil. It seemed pretty easy, but on the job we found that constant digging and scraping, pulling stones, crouching down, getting up, turning around and lifting the filled guffahs all can take their toll on your back, hands, hips, knees and muscles.

Demonstrating the fine art of digging with a pick and trowel

I was intrigued with what I perceived today was an apparent change in my status in the eyes of our Bedouin workers. Someone must have told them that I am physician, so now when they see me it is “mahaba (Hi!) Dr Mutwalli”.

At 5 pm today the core group of archaeologists will get together in the lab for an hour to start examining each of the important “finds” unearthed so far during the excavation. We all get to watch and listen, and learn. I expect to feel like a medical student during ward rounds on his first day on the wards, trying to figure out just what it is the experts are saying.