Wednesday Week 2 at Mudaybi

Hello Everyone,

Things are going well and we are making progress. Today I decided to take a 360 degree series of pictures, so you can see what it is like to stand on the site in the morning. I stood just to the west of the gate area. In the diagram above I was standing just to the left of the yellow area looking at Area B.

Photo 1 of the 360 series: the gate area. Here you can see that we are digging on the left side of the gate complex.

Photo 2 of the 360 series: Area B. You can see the work in Linda Perkins and Dr. Ninow's square with the valley called the Fajj in the background. (This was the square with burial featured yesterday.)

Photo 3 of the 360 series: You can see the tumble of rocks inside the fortress. Note the ridge in the background with forts and towers on the high points. If you look carefully in the upper right hand corner you can see our surveyor at work.

Photo 4 of the 360 series: Look northwest towards Area A

Photo 5 of the 360 series: Looking west across the rock tumble inside the fortress, as you can see we have many stones that we have to deal with as we walk around the site, and as we excavate.

Photo 6 of the 360 series: Looking southwest you can see the outer wall of the fortress and sandy plains beyond.

Photo 7 of the 360 series: You can see one of the surveyors tripods set up over a benchmark on the left.

Photo 8 of the 360 series: Looking southeast, on the horizon is the town of Mahay. Closer in on the left you can see the sift piles for the sifting operation for Area B.

Photo 9 of the 360 series: Looking east-southeast you can see the outline of the fortress wall. You can also see in the distance a green tank of water. Our workers use this their source of drinking water.

Photo 10 of the 360 series: Looking east at the gate area again

Here is our surveyor Paul Mabry at the transit with his survey crew shooting points for a topographic map of the region around the site. That is Wilbur Reid in the distance at the center of the photo with Ralph Carnathan on the lower right.

This a view to the north, notice the line of hills along the horizon, on the highest points of those hills are forts and towers. The valley to the east of Mudaybi was major route for trade and military activities. Our fortress and this line of towers and forts helped to guard access to this route.

Here is a closer view of one of the large forts to the north of Mudaybi.

Here is Dr. Jerry Mattingly this morning, giving instruction and encouragement in Area A.

This is one of the nicely preserved Iron Age rooms in Area D, note the nicely paved floor this room.

Here John Mark Wade uses a builders level in Area D to take levels in Area D.

Holding the stadia rod for John Mark is the representative from the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, Khalid Tahranna.

Here you can see the buses that take us to the site each day. The small building is where our guard sleeps. You can see some of our equipment in the area just outside the building.

Wilbur Reid and Ralph Carnathan, in adding to their surveying duties, help solve all of our "engineering" problems. Wilbur is tightening the bolts on our guffas (rubber buckets made from old tires)

Our work is hard on our equipment so it often needs repair.

You can see that Dr. Ted Carruth and Melissa Spong are making progress on their square outside the gate. They have uncovered a large bench adjacent to the gate tower.

Here Dr. Jerry Mattingly (left) is helping out in Dr. Don Garner's square in Area A.

Here you can see how Abu Hajar (Father of the Rocks) earned his nickname. He takes aim at a large stone in Dr. Mike Van Zant's square.

He hits the stone dead on and cracks it in three swings.

Here Abu Hajar (on the left) and Salah (one of our drivers) cut up the "second breakfast" watermelon at 9:30 this morning. Waiting for their slices are Paul Mabry on the left and Ralph Carnathan on the right.

This is the crew from Area A, one of our workers on the left, Emily Saunders, Abu Hajar, anf Dr. Mike Van Zant.

Time to get some sleep. Tomorrow is payday for the workers. We will end work an hour early so we can travel to Petra for an overnight trip. I am not sure if I will be able to post a blog tomorrow but I will try.

Remember can always access the blog at http://krp2009.blogspot.com and you can email me at wineland@kcu.edu

John Wineland
Karak, Jordan

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