Dig Day One

Today we experienced for the first time the joys of archeology, although at one stage when it got really hot Helen was thinking of walking home - to Invercargill! In the little picture in the "who are we" column there is a photo of Tall el-Hamman from a distance. It looks like a pile of dry clay. Because of a great wet season for Jordan everything is actually looking kind of green but the land is still very harsh and barren. Today's photo is of Helen walking down the spine of the Tall towards the north with Syria about 90 kms away. Jerusalem is 40 kms to the left although we couldn't see Israel today because of the haze. I will post other photo's over the next few days looking around the Tall. On the hills to the right is an army base and when you drive past you pass between armoured vehicles on sentry. Today there were helicopters from the base flying around.

The Tall (pronounced "tell") is a heap of rocks and soil. Every rock you see has been brought from somewhere else as they built the city of Sodom over time. The "soil" is decayed mud brick. The sloping sides are man made and average 37 degrees, the incline a pile of sand will settle too. At this angle water does not erode the soil, proved by the fact there is hardly any erosion on this 4000 year old heap. The big rocks to the left are part of the remains of Bera's palace, the King of Sodom who was the friend and ally of Abraham at one stage. Where you see the bull dozed track disappearing is where Helen and I have been assigned. The cutting, first bulldozed in 1967 during the war with Israel as the Jordanian army who placed artillery on top, has exposed a mud brick wall which we will be digging around to see how far it goes and what it is part of and what era it belongs to, plus digging down deep into the destruction layer they already know is there. You can still make out the individual bricks. A tell tale sign that it was there in the destruction event is a thin layer of carbonised material immediately on top of the wall. Will have a picture of it on Thursday, our camera and skite day of all the work we have done. Today was spent clearing rubble and over burden and we made it down to the top of the wall exposing about 3 square metres. We shifted 2-3 tones of rock and a similar amount of soil with 8 of us. It was a hot day especially in the afternoon and everyone looked shattered on the bus tonight. Helen and I were surprised/pleased that we were the fittest and able to work solidly all day. Tomorrow the real scientific archeology begins now we have an inkling of how to dig and scrape and brush, and best of all local labourers begin work with us who do all the shifting and carting of soil as we dig it out. Just in clearing the bit we did we found lots of pottery sherds that are 3-4000 years old. I found the base of a bowl and a handle of what would have been a jug. Someone else dug up a granite bowl shaped stone they they said was used for grinding grain. It is amazing to sit and hold them and think about the hands that made them. In our digging we came across a number of lizards, one really big one about the size of a Tuatara. It didn't wait round for a chat. Saw our first black scorpion, the dangerous ones. It was only a baby and Helen wasn't impressed when the guy who found it flicked it still alive about 3 metres from where she was working. Viper snakes have also been seen by the set-up crew over the last couple of days so we are all weary when shifting rocks and digging down through holes made by some critter or other.

For those at Windsor folk wondering about having to use the banana plantations as a toilet, because we are on the top of the Tall its too far to go, so we are using a tank trench instead. It's off to dinner now, another lecture then hit the sack for breakfast at 6am.