July 5th

Our excavation site is Tall al-Umayri which is one of 3 sites being explored within the Madaba Plains Project in central Jordan.  The other sites are Hisban and Jalul.  For our second day of orientation we were taken to these other two sites to give us a perspective and a big picture of the Ammonite settlements which began in central Jordan about 4000 years ago.  There is good evidence at Umayri of prehistoric habitation dating back to 3000 BC or earlier.  However Umayri is remarkable for what it has revealed about the Ammonite settlements, especially around 1200 to 1000 BC.   Each of the 3 sites is a Tell (or Tall in modern Arabic), a Tall being a layer cake of successive occupations and settlements built and rebuilt over thousands of years.

Hisban is interesting because many authorities believe that this is the site mentioned numerous times in the Bible as Heshbon.  It is recorded that when Moses led the Israelites into what is now Jordan the king of Heshbon refused permission for them to pass through his territory.  So a battle ensued and Heshbon was destroyed, which was unfortunate for those Ammonites, but also for the archeologists of today trying to reconstruct how the city looked before it was destroyed.  There are clearly defined layers of successive settlements, starting with the Ammonite structures, although the main architectural features now visible are Greek and Roman.  There are remains of a Greek temple (4^th century BC) with a Roman temple built on top of that dating to about the first century AD.  Then built over the Roman temple is a Byzantine church, and over that some Islamic structures.  On the side of the Tall is a large, round structure that is plastered inside, typical of a huge cistern built for storing water.

A view of Hisban showing a Byzantine church built on top of a Roman temple which was built over a Greek temple.  In the distance the arch is part of a later Islamic structure

Jalul is several miles away but still on the Madaba Plain and is about twice as large as Hisban.  Some archeologists believe that this could have been the site of ancient Heshbon.  Both Hisban and Jalul have large reservoirs for water storage, which is a significant fact because the Bible refers to the beautiful pools of Heshbon.

Tomorrow we will begin our serious digging at Umayri.  I have received my assignment – I will be working with 8 others on removing the walls and floor of a house from the Iron Age 2 era (700-500BC) so that we can expose a house below it built in the Iron Age 1 era (1200-1000BC).  The archeologists want to establish the whole Umayri site and display it with some partial reconstruction as an Iron Age 1 era village.  That means removing later architectural elements, after fully documenting everything, to expose the site as it would have been in the 1200 to 1000 BC era.

I have seen some photographs of the site and many of those walls are constructed with big, not big, huge, stones.  Fortunately they have hired some local Jordanian workers who will do most of the heavy lifting for us and they will assist with dirt removal – it is our job to expose everything and organize the removal of all the unwanted material.  But regardless I am sure it will be heavy work.