Aug 6 – Monday
The 2012 dig season is winding down. We still have a little soil removal to do to
finish our square, but we will have to stop very soon in preparation for the
formal and official end-of-season photographs that record in detail where the
excavation of the 2012 season actually ended.
There has to be a compulsive clean-up for the photographs – no dirt on
any rocks, no loose stones on any flat surface and everything put away. There are the multiple photos taken by our
official photographer, but in addition the whole Tall is photographed again by
the boom camera. All of that takes
considerable time and we have to leave the site by Tuesday evening. One important reason for the detailed drawings,
photographs and record-keeping is to clearly document where we leave the excavation
this year so that when we come back next season the archaeologists will know
exactly what their starting point will be.
More than that, their analysis and study during the coming year will
help them develop specific objectives for exactly what they want to achieve
during the next season.
If there is a next season. The land that includes the Tall is owned by
a developer who is intent on bulldozing everything so he can build and realize his
expected profit on his investment. His
attitude seems to be – civilizations have been building on top of each other for
millennia, so what is different now? Dr
Clark contends that there are decades-worth of valuable excavation that could
be done if he could continue at Umayri, and he has lobbied whomever he could
to try and get support for his continued studies at the site. At this stage he is still not sure what the
future will be for the Umayri excavation.
The site is on the outskirts of Amman and the city is growing rapidly. There are now many houses near the Tall and
many more will certainly be built in the near future. Right at the base of the Tall a big freeway
has recently been built and there was quite a scrap over the ruins of a
Byzantine church on top of hill that was standing in the way of the
construction. I was able to photograph
the site right from the top of Umayri.
Photograph taken from the top of Umayri looking over the freeway to the ruins of a Byzantine church
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