Greetings From Mudaybi

Hello from Mudaybi, here you are looking into the face of history.

Linda Perkins from Georgetown, KY finished her excavation of a burial this morning.

She is carefully cleaning and excavating this burial of a young woman. Once she is finished there is a call for the photographer, Tim Snow, from the Catholic University of America, to make sure that we have a good photographic record of this find.

Here Tim sets down his meter stick for scale and places his north arrow.

Here is what the photo looks like with the meter stick (remember that a meter is just slightly longer than a yard about 39 inches) and the north arrow.

Once the burial is photographed it is removed for examination, here they are cleaning the soil from skull.

As the sun risings this morning it has a reddish appearance because of all the dust in the air. It has been very windy the last few days which probably is the reason for the dust and haze.

There is plenty of paperwork to be done both in the field and at the Rest House. Here Professor Valdecy Da Silva, of Colegio Biblico is drawing a balk in one of the squares.

He is using clothes pins to hold down the paper in the strong winds.

Drawings must be made of an aerial view of the square, this is called a top plan, and also of each wall and balk (shown above).

Back in camp, Tim Snow, our photographer, works on the computer to print out copies of progress photos to give to each square supervisor.

Here is an example of the one of the photo sheets in a notebook with comments.

After lunch the work continues all of the pottery must be washed. We use a bucket, water, and a scrub brush. Here Dr. Gerald Keown of Gardner-Webb University is working hard to get his potsherd clean.

Dr. Mike Van Zant of Mount Vernon Nazarene University joins in the cleaning process.

Here you can see that each pail has a label which gives the information about where the pottery was found, i.e. which square and locus. This tag is written in the field and stays with the pottery all through the processing.

Once washed the pottery is placed in a mesh bag so it can dry.

After the pottery dries, it is brought in the mesh bags to the pottery reading table.

Here the pottery is sorted and identified, by the shape, form of the pottery, and the type of ware (or the material from which the pottery is made)

Each square and Field supervisor records the information determined at the the pottery table.

Later our ceramicist and registrar, Dr. James Pace of Elon University writes a label on each sherd, and records all of our information.

Here is an example of a recent find, a piece of painted Iron Age pottery.

Once processed the pottery is stored in plastic crates in the hallway.

Also stored here are the other finds that come from the squares, like glass, bone, and worked stones.

All of this material is recorded in the field notebooks along with the drawings and photographs. Eventually all of this material will be shipped to the KRP lab at Johnson Bible College, in Knoxville, TN.

All of this work in the field and at the camp can make you tired. Here Emily Dew from UNC Chapel Hill and Melissa Spong from Johnson Bible College, take a break on the stone lintels from the gate.

That is all for today. Remember that if you have missed any of these postings or if you would like to refer back to earlier ones, you can see all of the postings at this address, http://krp2009.blogspot.com

If you have questions or comments you can send a message to me at wineland@kcu.edu

John Wineland
Karak, Jordan

CSI-Mudaybi

Hello,

Today I thought I would try to show each person at work on the site, so you can see the variety of activities that happen each day.

I thought that I would label this entry "CSI Mudaybi" because we have two burials that we are excavating. Below you can see a close view of a skull and then the complete view of an articulated skeleton that was half in our bulk.



This skeleton was found in Field B in the square of Dr. Freidbert Ninow of Theologische Hochschule Friednensau, and Linda Perkins a school teacher from Georgetown, Kentucky. They are shown above working in their square.

Also in the Field B (the gate area) Dr. Ted Carruth of David Lispcomb University and Melissa Spong of Johnson Bible College have unearthed a bench area in front of the gate.

In Field A Dr. Michael Van Zant of Mount Vernon Nazarene University and Emily Saunders of Carson-Newman College are working on another burial in their square. ( the photo above)

Dr. Don Garner of Carson-Newman College and Emily Dew of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill are continuing to clear a locus in their square in Field A.

In Field D, Dr. Gerald Keown of Gardner-Webb University and Dr. Miriam Perkins of Emmanuel School of Religion, are working hard digging through a tumble of r0cks in Field A.

Here Prof. Valdecy Da Silva of Colegio Biblico and Hadassah Penwell of Johnson Bible College remove a bulk and reveal some loom weights and a grinding stone pictured below.






Also in Field D, John Mark Wade (second from the left) of Emmanuel School of Religion and his crew are working through a tumble rocks in this square that is a new one this season.




Our photographer Tim Snow of Catholic University of America moves around the site documenting our activites and progress.

Dr. John Foss, University of Tennessee, our soil scientist explains the use of the Munsell Soil Chart to Valdacy Da Silva.

Here Dr. Foss uses his auger to drill down in one of our squares to get a profile of the soil below.
Our surveyor Paul Mabry of South Puget Sound Community College and his survey crew are working on a topographic map of the site and the surrounding area.
Here is the survey crew working hard to map the site. (Ralph Carnathan, Knoxville, TN on the left and Wilbur Reid, Johnson Bible College on the right)

(from left to right) Maia, Hope, Ziad, Mary and "Queen" Noor Salamaeh

Today we were visited by friends of Dr. Miriam Perkins, they stayed at the site for a couple of hours and two budding archaeologists (Maia and Hope) joined in the excavation

Here is Hope and Maia hard at work.

On the way to the site we saw several camels grazing on thorns

"Queen" Noor got a ride on a camel

The End

John Wineland
Mudaybi, Jordan

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