Moon Over Mudaybi

Greetings,
It was another good day at Mudaybi, but it was hotter than the last few days and there was very little wind today. I took this picture this morning, when we arrived at the site the full moon was bright over the site. This is a view of the ancient Iron Age gate with full moon.

Here is another shot of the moon in the western sky over Mudaybi, in this view you can see the many stones of the site and some of the color in the sky from the rising sun.


For the last two days I have been directing a team of workers in cleaning up the gate area and removing old balks so we can proceed with our work. It involves moving and breaking very large building stones. We use pry bars and sledge hammers to move and break the stones. Then it is all hauled out by hand. Above is a view of Area A (the gate area) looking East.



About a half an hour before time to leave the site, we found two good samples of carbonized wood. We found this in the gate in earlier seasons. The gate area was roofed with cedar beams covered with mud and reeds. Above you see the sample in situ. We then removed it with our metal trowels. Since we want to use this sample for radiocarbon dating, we had to be sure not to touch the sample or expose it to any carbon (including paper or plastic).

In order to protect it and store it we wrapped it in aluminium foil. We will send samples for testing after we return home.

In Area D John Mark Wade and his crew have uncovered more of the nicely paved floor in an Iron Age II room.



Here John Mark Wade oversees Hadasah Penwell as she uncovers the paved room.

Also in Area D, Gerald Keown and Miriam Perkins unearthed a finely constructed doorway. Gerald is standing on a large theshold. A seal was found in this square yesterday. I hope to post a picture of the seal tomorrow.

Here is a video with John Mark Wade describing some of the work being done in Area D.

Don Garner and Emily Dew have removed a hard packed soil level in their square in Area A, and now they are reaching bedrock.

When we eat lunch at the Rest House resturant we often see tourist groups from France, Spain, Italy, and Germany. The location of Karak makes it a good place for tourists coming from Amman or Petra to stop and see the castle and then eat lunch. Yesterday we had lunch with the Boston Children's Choir. They are traveling Jordan at the invitation of the King. They performed five concerts in Jordan including one in Karak. They invited us to attend their performance last evening and several of the excavation team went to hear them.

When we arrived we found the auditorium packed with hundreds of children from the Karak area. They were so excited and noisy that we really could not hear much of the performance. One team member describe it as "Bedlam."



The choir did several numbers and remained focused despite the noisy crowd.

We enjoyed the unexpected cultural event, even though it turned out to be a lesson in the youth of Karak rather than the youth of Boston.

I will end tonight with this mornings sunrise at the site. Once again it is late and we get up for breakfast at 3:45AM.

Remember you can view the blog anytime at

http://krp2009.blogspot.com

If you have trouble the video from the email you should be able to see it on the blog.

You can email me at wineland@kcu.edu

John Wineland
Karak, Jordan