Karak Castle: one of the finest examples of a Crusader castle anywhere in the world and the best preserved one in Jordan

Greetings Everyone,

It has been a busy, but good, day here. Everyone is fine but I think all of us are tired. Tomorrow we will go to the site and get all of the dig equipment into storage on the site and then begin to clean up eight years of debris from our old squares. After that it is back to camp so we can get things organized and ready for excavation.

We do have wireless in the Rest House and this old computer seems to be working fine. So that will make for much easier posting of the blog.

We are living about 100 feet from the walls of the castle (seen above). From the window of our room, tonight, we can see the lights of Jerusalem across the Dead Sea Rift valley.

We will eat lunch and dinner, each day, in a restored Ottoman building that once was used as a hospital. It is also right next to the castle. Tonight we ate dinner outside with a view of the castle wall. The only thing that separated us from the castle was the dry moat. Several arrow slits in wall were easdy to spot because they shine large lights on the walls of the castle.

We will get to enjoy this view of the castle each day, especially at lunch and dinner time.

Since I am so tired I better close. I will write more tomorrow.

John Wineland
Karak, Jordan