A trip to the Dead Sea and Jordan River

Hello,

This morning I stayed in camp, in part because I banged my knee yesterday. It is not that serious but to be safe, I took it "easy" today. This is how it looks when our buses leave each morning at 4:30AM.


This is the view from the window of my room at the Karak Rest House. It looks out over the Wadi Karak which leads down to the Dead Sea. Dr. John Foss invited me to go with him today into the Great Rift Valley. He was headed to the King Hussein Bridge at the Jordan River. He was going to pick up Valdecy DaSilva who spent two days visiting Jerusalem. We headed out about 8:30AM.

This is the view today on the busy streets of Karak.


Karak was a castle town in the medieval period so that means that there are limited routes in and out of the city. This is a view of Karak castle from the wadi Karak. You can see the Rest House in the upper left of the picture.

As we headed down to the Dead Sea, we dropped greatly in elevation. The Dead Sea is the lowest spot on the face of the earth with an elevation of 1378 feet below sea level. Karak's elevation is about 3050 feet above sea level. So we dropped in elevation about 4400 feet in a distance of about 30 miles.

We stopped briefly at the sign along the road that marks the point of sea level.

Here I am at sea level today.


Later we drove along the Dead Sea heading north towards the bridge.

I quickly took this picture of out the car window, it is where the Wadi Mujib (pictured in Friday's blog) meets the Dead Sea.



The drove to the bridge and picked up Valdecy DaSilva, pictured here at the Jordan River. We decided that since we were very close to the traditional site of the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River that we would stop for a visit.

This marks the spot where it is believed that Jesus was baptized, in the background are the ruins of the Church of John the Baptist.

This site became known after the peace treaty between Jordan and Israel in the 1990's. It is believed to be the site of Bethany beyond the Jordan mentioned in John 1:28.

I visited the site in 2001 about when it first was opened. There have been two papal visits to the site, once in 2000, and one about a month ago. This has brought a great deal of attention to the site and changes at the site. The Jordanian governments expects and hopes that this will become a site that will draw many visitors every year.

Here you see the ruins of the Church of John on the left with the tradition site of baptismal place of Jesus in the background.

This is the Jordan River from a view place along the trail to the Church of John.


Here I am at Jordan river today, I was surprised that you could travel into this military zone, in fact I was only about 15 feet from Israeli controlled territory while standing here. So much has changed here since I first visited in 2001.


The Israelis are building a place for tourists to come to be baptized much like the one that is located near the Sea of the Galilee in the north.


Many churches are being built near this site, here is a Greek Orthodox church with a gold covered dome. All of these churches have been built in the last 8 years, and several are currently under construction.

We drove back to Karak on the Desert Highway and arrived in time for the end of pottery reading. Before dinner we had a brief church service.

Tomorrow I go back to the site at 4:30AM so I better get to bed.

John Wineland
Karak, Jordan

A Day to Rest and Get Caught Up

Hello,

Today we had a day of rest, people washed laundry, read books, wrote emails, and caught up on paper work. so not too much to report.


I thought you might like to see how we do our laundry. We wash and rinse in buckets with small amounts of laundry soap. Then we put up a line in our room to let things dry.

It does not take long for things to dry, shirts maybe an hour or less, pants and socks two hours.

Tomorrow we resume our normal work schedule upat 3:45AM.

So I will leave you with an excellent picture taken by Friedbert Ninow of the sunset last night. You can see the castle wall on the left. The hills in the distance are near the Dead Sea.


Psalm 65:8 They who dwell in the ends of the earth stand in awe of Your signs; You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.

John Wineland
Karak, Jordan

Saturday Morning in Karak

Greetings,

I had a chance to sleep in, but I woke up at 5:45AM. Today will be an easy day so maybe I can get a nap.

I wanted to remind you that you can see all of the blog entries at http://krp2009.blogspot.com

If you need to email me you can do so at wineland@kcu.edu.

I thought you might like to see the weather forecast for Jordan.

It is from the Jordan Times, you can see the local news perspective at their website

http://www.jordantimes.com/

Here is how they describe our weather forecast (remember all temperatures are in Celsius).

It will be hot with winds northwesterly moderate to brisk and dusty at times. In Aqaba, it will be hot with winds northerly moderate and seas calm.

City/Area Temperature Low/High

Amman 22 35
Aqaba 28 39
Desert 21 37
Jordan Valley 25 40
Hilly Areas 21 30


Here is a handy conversion chart, Celsius is on the left.

0	32
5	41
10	50
15	59
20	68
25	77
30	86
35	95
40	104
45	113
50	122

There will be another post later today.

John Wineland
Karak, Jordan

Our First Day Off

Greetings,

Today we had our first day off since the field work began. I think it was welcome by everyone. It gives us the time to wash some laundry, get a nap, and visit the northern part of the Karak Plateau.

We did not have breakfast until 7AM today. It was nice to get some extra sleep. After breakfast we headed out in our small buses headed northward toward the Wadi Mujib.


Dr. Friedbert Ninow was our guide at the site called Balua. He knows the area well, because he has excavated here for 10 seasons or more and he is the director of the excavations. You can see the wadi Balau in the background.


This is the "Qasr (castle)" at Balau which is a fortress that dates back to the Iron Age and was reused during the Roman period. Balau is a hige site near the Wadi Mujib with a long history of occupation from the Bronze Age up through the Islamic periods.
This is Dr. Jim Pace from Elon University, he hurt his foot while climbing up the tradition site of Mt. Sinai during a tour he was leading before the excavation began. He is a central part of KRP and he serves as our registrar (keeping track of all of the material we dig up) and our ceramist. He makes sure that we keep all of the material in order. He wants us to make sure everything is "bagged and tagged." He has had to stay in camp because of his injury but he decided to come with us today. To keep his brace clean he "bagged" it, so Dr. Jerry Mattingly decided to have some fun by making sure he was also "tagged."


Here his tag reads Iron II, one of his favorite periods.



Dr. Don Garner of Carson-Newman College, climbs up an ancient staircase which connections ancient Balua to the springs in Wadi Balau.


This is a fragment of a volute captial, similar to the ones we have found at Mudaybi. To learn more about these captials click this link and read the casestudy written by Dr. Joel Drinkard from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, http://www.vkrp.org/studies/historical/capitals/

Compare it with this one from our site.
Note the similarity of the lines of the triangle in the lower part of the capital. The Balua capital is made from basalt while all other examples are made of limestone.


Here is the wadi Balau as seen from the site, it drains into the wadi Mujib.


Near the site of Balau are the Azazmeh, a tribe of Bedouin people who originally lived near Beersheba in the Negev. They used to travel back and forth between this area and the Negev, but because of the political situation they must stay in Jordan now. Here we see a Bedouin man water his flock.


The Bedouin traditionally have moved their flocks to sources of water and food.


Here is a view of a mother with her children. Water is a major problem for Jordan there is a growing population and a decline in water. This situation greatly affects the Bedouin people.



These boys wave good-bye to our group.


Here is a picture of our group today at the Wadi Mujib. You can see on the upper right hand side of the photo the lake which has formed behind the dam in the Wadi Mujib. The Wadi Mujib is often called the "Grand Canyon" of Jordan. In the Bible the Mujib is know as the Arnon. So the area of Moab is traditional considered to be, the area east of the Great Rift Valley where the Dead Sea is found, the area south of the Wadi Mujib (Arnon) and the area north of the Wadi Hesa (Zered).

Here is a map of Moab showing the the biblical names.

This dam has only recently been constructed, it is one of the ways that Jordan is trying to meet its water demands.

After we left the Wadi Mujib we travel south to Rabba to the ruins of a Nabatean temple which is similar to the temple at Dhat Ras which we visited last week.

The ruins are found in the center of the town along a busy street. The city has a long history dating back at least to the Iron Age.


We stopped for a good view of Karak castle on our way back into town. Tomorrow we have another day off and then it is back to the early mornings and hard work.

John Wineland
Karak, Jordan

End of the First Week of Field Work

Hello,

We have completed our first week of excavation. I thought that today I would highlight some of the things we do we each day plus some of the special things that happened today.


This is the site we have each morning. We get up at 3:45 AM. Then we load on two microbuses after breakfast. When leave when it is dark and the drive takes about 45 minutes to the site (the return in the afternoon takes about an hour because of traffic). We go from riding on a paved road, to a gravel road, and final to a dirt road to the site.

Above is the view from the the bus that I rode on this morning. You can see the other bus on the dirt road shead of us. I always ride "shotgun" in the bus that Salah drives.

After about 30 minutes we reach the village of Umm Hamat and we pick our the local workman, who squeeze into Salah's bus with us. This is a picture looking back from my "shotgun" seat. You can see Dr. Ted Carruth, of Lipscomb College, on the left, and just behind him is Tim Snow, of Catholic University of America, in the white hat. On the far right is Valdecy Da Silva, of Colegio Biblico. Just behind Valdecy is Dr. Gerald Keown, of Gardner-Webb University. The haze is the dust from the road that fills the bus.

We arrive at the site before sunrise, so we can have good lighting for our daily photographs of the progress of the excavation. We also have the benefit of working in the cool of the day. We have been fortunate to have good weather so far. It has been in the mid-90's most days, but today it hotter with less wind and the high was about 110. The wind is coming from the east instead of the west (as it normally does) that means that the wind is coming from across the desert so it is much hotter. I hope it changes back soon.


Today I am going to focus on Area B which is where a massive gate is located. This gate dates to the Iron Age II period (925 - 539 BC). The gate complex was decorated with beautiful volute capitals. Here Dr. Ted Carruth of Lipscomb University (one of the members of the KRP consortium) proudly poses with one of the massive monolithic limestone stones that once towered (about 16 feet high) over the entrance to the gate. The stones probably toppled in an earthquake and you can see it is in four pieces.


This is one of the captials that we found during an earlier season, at least 6 of these hugh limestone capitals adorned the 4 chambered gate complex.

This is a possible reconstruction of the chambers of the gate.


The Dig Photographer Tim Snow, of Catholic University of America, takes overview photos of the gate early this morning. Our main job in this area today is moving some of the large stones which are tumbled in the gate and block our digging.


Archaeologists normally work with small picks, brushes, and trowels but at times we need to bring in heavy equipment to move massive stones that we need to preserve so that someday this gate can be reconstructed. In the photo above I am helping our crew wrap a large rope around a large limestone block so it can be elsewhere. Work in Ted's square was blocked by several large stones.


After we carefully attach the ropes, the stones were lifted by a large front end loader and placed elsewhere in the site so we they can be used for reconstruction at a later time. I am glad to report that our relocation of large building stones was a success. Thankfully no one was injured during the process and the stones were not damaged either.

After successfully moving these stones, there is a pause for a photo at the urging of Salah. Here is the picture of one of our drivers Salah (on the left) with Melissa Spong, a student at Johnson Bible College. Melissa works with Ted in the gate area. Abu Ayman is on the right. He guards the site night and day while we are there. He is also an expert at removing stones. His fondness for and skill at breaking large stones with a sledge hammer has earned him the nickname "Abu Hajar" which means "Father of the Rocks."


After returning to camp we clean up and eat lunch, then we have a rest period which is following by at work time at 4pm when the pottery is washed. Then we have pottery "reading" where we identify the pottery we have dug up . (more on this another day).

Lunch is served in the building on the left (a renovated 19th century Ottoman hospital) but we eat dinner together on the veranda with a great view of the medieval walls of Karak Castle.


This is the view from the veranda where we eat. Note the arrow slits in the wall where defenders of the castle could fire at anyone who attacked the castle.


We also get a wonderful view of the setting sun each evening. This was our view tonight. The sun sets over the rift valley and the Dead Sea, those are the mountains of southern Israel.

It is late once again but at least I get to sleep in tomorrow( if I can). We do not eat breakfast until 7AM then we leave on a tour of northern Moab at 7:40AM.

John Wineland
Karak, Jordan

Wednesday at KRP: Some views of the day

Today I thought I would just highlight some of the activities of the day with some pictures. Above is a picture of some of the crew just after our "second breakfast" which most days is very tasty watermelon. Every day at 9:30 we stop for about a half an hour to eat and rest before continuing our work. From left to right is Dr. Jerry Mattingly, Salah Slaihat one of our bus drivers, Emily Saunders a student from Carson Newman College, Hussein Al-Ababdeh our other driver, and one of our local workers.


This Dr. Friedbert Ninow who is excavating the gate area at Mudaybi. He teaches at the Theologische Hochschule Friedensau in Germany. Friedbert has worked for many years in the northern part of Karak at a site called Balua.

Today on our way back to Karak after working at the site we stopped to see a large herd of camels. The men watching over the camels told us that were brought to Jordan from Saudi Arabia and the far southern parts of Jordan to graze on thistles, some of these plants have many long sharp thorns. Notice on the right is a baby camel.

Our survey crew is working on a topographic map of the area surrounding the site. Here they are fixing one of the survey prisms to the top of a stadia rod. On the left is our surveyor, Paul Mabry from South Puget Sound Community College and one of our survey crew Wilbur Reid from Johnson Bible College.

This is Area D, hard at work this morning, excavating their squares. In the foreground on the left is KRP veteran Dr. Gerald Keown of Garner-Webb University, in the middle is one of the local workman, and on the right is Dr. Miriam Perkins of Emmanuel School of Religion. In the distance standing is John Mark Wade also of Emmanuel School of Religion and also in the distance standing on the right is Hadassah Penwell a student at Johnson Bible College.


This morning Dr. Gerald Keown, of Garner-Webb University demonstrates for the local workers how to use the shift properly. We carry all of the excavated soil in rubber buckets called guffas (one is visible on the lower right) to the shifts (one shift per square) here the workers seperate any artifacts from the soil and rocks.

Tomorrow we end our first full week of excavating. We have had good weather so far with highs about 95 or so but tomorrow it will be hotter maybe 40 degrees Celsius which is about 104 F.

I want to welcome several new readers to the blog, you can read all of the postings anytime at http://krp2009.blogspot.com If you need to send me a message you can do so at wineland@kcu.edu Let me know if you would like to be added to the email list. If you are on this list you automatically receive each post as an email.

It is late once again so I better end for now, there is alot of fireworks going off right now but I am not sure which holiday is being celebrated.

John Wineland
Karak, Jordan