Karak Castle

Hello Again,

As I told you earlier we will be staying in Karak, Jordan for our base of operation. We will travel out to the site, Mudaybi, each day. The name Karak comes from the French Krak which means castle or fortress. The heart of the modern town is built on the site of the medieval castle town. It is surrounded by walls with the castle at the far end. You can see the castle in the picture above on the left. We will be staying about 100 yards from the entrance to the castle on the other side of the dry moat.

It is a Crusader castle from the 12th century AD. Many tourists come and visit the castle each day. Many of them are Europeans with a high percentage being French tourists since the history of the castle can be traced to French Crusaders.
For a larger image of the castle click here http://www.flickr.com/photos/frankenschulz/2965037286/sizes/l/

You can see more about the history of the castle at our VKRP website, click here
http://www.vkrp.org/studies/historical/town-castle/

The modern town of Karak is home to over 170,000 people today. You can see more about the city of Karak here http://imadanat.tripod.com/karak/

I enjoy living so close to the castle since I teach Medieval History (in fact I teach it this Fall at KCU). If any of you saw the movie Kingdom of Heaven some of the story revolves around Karak Castle and the master of the castle Reynald who by all accounts was a very cruel man. The movie has scenes with Karak castle but unfortunately, it is not the real castle that they show. They shot the film in Morocco not Jordan.

Have a great day.

John Wineland
Grayson, Kentucky

Dr. Reuben Bullard

Greetings,

We leave on Monday. I received my box of pottery and lithic samples to take as my "second" bag. Running other errands today.

I am trying to finishing editing a memorial volume for Dr. Reuben Bullard before I go. It is getting close. To be honest several of us going to Jordan this summer can credit Dr. Bullard directly or indirectly for our involvement in archaeology. Jerry Mattingly, Tim Snow, John Mark Wade, and I were all his students so I have been thinking a great deal about him over the past few months.

He used to say to students as they began one of his classes or trips, "This will change your life."

He certainly changed our lives. He was a pioneer in applying the field of geological studies to archaeology. We all miss him.


John Wineland
Grayson, KY