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