Thanks, Grandpa.

June 29, 2011

                The scents of the morning drive to the tell have started to become familiar: smoke from recently burnt olive wood, the Madaba dump, the goat pen of that guy who keeps his livestock beside the shop near the speed bump, things like that.  There was a new scent this morning, slightly acidic, a familiar smell somehow, thought I couldn’t place it. As we neared the dig site and I looked up at the sky, it struck me why it seemed that way.

                Few people expect to smell rain in the desert.

                The sky was overcast, heavy clouds obscuring the sun. The smell of rain hung in the air, and the morning breeze was cooler than usual. I am firmly convinced my grandfather is to blame.

                Grandpa Jack was, it seemed, something of a stormbringer. Whether it was pure coincidence or something else, rough weather appeared to follow him when he travelled. It rained and snowed in places where it very rarely does so every time he went abroad, and he was quite the traveller in his day. I can’t recall precisely, but I don’t remember it ever being sunny when he came to visit. He died close to twenty years ago; I’d like to think this is his way of showing approval for being the first of our family to get abroad the way he did, to have an adventure and step outside that comfort zone of hearth and home and loved ones to live a little.

                At the site, we’ve been cleaning the interseasonal debris out of the square. It looks a bit like the north balk—the wall of soil left to separate one square from another—threw up into the rooms just south of it. So far, we’ve found a decent number of potsherds and bone fragments, and even a few objects. It looks like it will be an interesting square.

When cleanup was finished and the time came to begin tearing down the north balk, we got a bit of a surprise. Perhaps foolishly, we had anticipated being able to get at least a little off the top before it got overly crumbly. The balk had other ideas. 

                Tap. Taptap. Scrape scrape WHUMP.

                All hell broke loose before us as a good third of the upper part of the balk came crashing down. Our boots and sinuses were filled with dirt, but we were unharmed. Tomorrow, we’ll go back to it much more gently.

Committing archaeology

We had our first day in the field, doing cleanup to get fallen rocks and other debris out of the squares. I’m sore, ridiculously tired, and spent most of the day dirtier than I have ever been in my entire life. 

It was awesome.

Understanding Wordsworth

"This city now doth like a garment wear the beauty of the morning." -- William Wordsworth, Composed Upon Westminster Bridge

5:30 a.m.

                Madaba, as far as can be seen from my hotel window, is absolutely motionless in the early morning. The sun rises behind the rolling desert hills; its light, still soft for now, bathes the blocky buildings in a rosy glow. They become a collage of rectangles, broken here and there by a dome or an ancient archway, windows black against pale masonry. Tiny birds flit among the gutters and rooftops, their song the only sound. The heat of the day has not yet set in, and a cool breeze dances among the narrow leaves of the ubiquitous olive trees. It is a scene taken out of time, essentially unchanged for more than 1400 years.

                At home, there would be joggers out, cars on the road, people walking their dogs. Here, there is none of that. In the morning in Madaba, city of ancient churches, those who are awake are alone with themselves and the silent beauty of the sunrise.

Handful of doves

"All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain." --Roy Batty, Blade Runner

Happy Birthday, love! May this year bring you the best of life, the universe, and everything.

                Human beings have created some truly fantastic things over the ages—pyramids, Roman roads, desert castles, towers whose walls are still recognizable after nearly two thousand years, and the list goes on. All of that somehow pales next to the millions of years it took a river to carve the landscape, its passing marked in the visible strata of rock, the bed all abloom with vivid pink oleander.

                Part of the tower (or what was likely a tower) wall of Rumayl is still visible amongst the heaps of collapsed stone. Other heaps, arranged more or less in rows, mark where other buildings and other rooms once stood. One of the other dig team members found a human skull wedged in amongst the stones.

                At Zafran, whose wall is pictured below, potsherds lay thick upon the ground. It was impossible to walk without treading on history. I found some lovely diagnostics—rims and a handle with rim—and a few nice body sherds.  Leaving them all there was very, very difficult.

                We finally got to our site around mid-to-late morning, startling the great hairy goats who had been grazing on the tell. After a tour, wherein we were followed by Bedouin children eager to have their pictures taken, we collapsed for a bit until the truck arrived with supplies. Once the truck arrived, the hard work began: setting up the tent.

                A hill, by itself, is not generally too much of a challenge. Make it sandy. Add a steep incline, buckets of heat, a dwindling water supply, and sledgehammers, wheelbarrows, iron rebar, ladders, and other supplies, and it gets much harder, especially when repeat trips are required.  Fortunately, we won’t have to do that nonsense again until the end of the dig, when it’s time to take down the tent. We finally finished, and, exhausted, came home for lunch. Next time we go out, most of us will be taking three litres of water, instead of just one. 

                Apart from digging, there are also other jobs to do. I’ve become one of the Assistant Tool Repairpeople, putting years of MacGyvering to good use. Bob, the camp logistics director, initially told me that I was his trainee (not a minion; this was in reference to a wandering conversation). When one of the dig directors brought other volunteers over, Bob turned to me and said, “Congratulations—you’re now an instructor.”

                Hooray, field promotions? As it turned out, I only ended up with one co-volunteer. We work well together, and have come up with some good ideas for repairing gear. 

                Tomorrow, more training. Tonight, sleep. Legs are jello.

June 25, evening

                After lunch and a rest, we went for a tour of Madaba. There are next to no traffic lights in this city, and the speed limit appears to be dictated by individual preferences. Streets wind up hills and twist down across ruins, casually blending Ottoman ruins and Roman Christian architecture with craft shops, shisha dens, bakeries, and cellphone stores. 

                We stopped first at the Church of the Map,  a 6th century CE Byzantine church that is home to a gorgeous floor mosaic map of the Holy Land. The walls, too, are covered in detailed mosaic art, depicting the stations of the cross, Saint Michael, and Saint George.

                After that, we went down to the Archaeological Park to see some of the oldest mosaics in the area. They weren’t as intricate as the map, but they were lovely. In the park is the crypt of a saint (I will find out which one and post the name later), which bore the mosaics of grapes and pomegranates. The museum guide said that the grapes were there to feed the flesh, and the pomegranate to feed the soul.

                Our next stop was at the top of the Madaba acropolis, which bears the oldest church in the city, a Roman construction the tower of which overlooks the entire city. If the opportunity arises, I might go and check out the inside before I come home. As we wandered down the hill from the church, the late afternoon call to prayer began, accompanied by an almost mournful music. The effect was eerie, yet somehow peaceful. For a moment, it was like we’d wandered on to the set of a movie. I half-expected to see a mysterious man with a little box sitting in a dim cafe, croaking out, “What’s your pleasure?”

                After buying water (I’m not brave enough to have my innards curb-stomped by the water here yet) we headed back to the hotel, had supper, and went through a brief orientation. Then, at last, came sweet, sweet sleep.

Feet on the ground

10:45 a.m.

               We arrived in Jordan just prior to 4:00 in the morning, after a long and noisy flight. Tired, we passed through Immigration, acquiring work visas from men who looked at least as tired as we were, and a lot more bored. Once everyone had their luggage and Customs was relatively certain that none of us was carrying anything more dangerous than a trowel and a bawdy sense of humour, we stowed our luggage in a truck, boarded the hired bus, and were off to Madaba.

                The old and the new meet in Jordan. The great glass-walled expansion of the Queen Alia Airport contrasts sharply with a city full of half-finished—now abandoned—construction projects, rusted rebar jutting nakedly from the tops of columns and upper story walls. Lush olive groves and red-roofed villas stand a breath away from shantytowns, which are, in turn, nestled against new construction projects. Wild dogs and wandering livestock were a common sight as we covered the twenty minutes or so from airport to hotel. In one spot, abandoned buildings in various states of decay were mixed in with the ruined stone walls of structures of indeterminate age. It was as if some of what we hope to dig up had forgotten that it was supposed to have been buried two thousand years ago.

                The Salome is a pleasant little hotel in Madaba. They are, it seems, in the process of renovations; a third story is in evidence, but the walls gape open, incomplete. Nothing is rushed in Jordan; appointment times are, to borrow a phrase, more of a suggestion than a code, really. Construction will be finished when it’s finished. The rooms, small but tastefully decorated, have A/C units, for which I am eternally grateful. I am so bloody tired.