The Jordan Valley

Last day of the week is over and we are settling in for a quite night. We only did a half day then went and visited each others squares around the site and were shown the weeks discoveries. Complete pottery containers to decapitated human remains. Then we did a little tour of the Jordan valley to the centre of the "disc of Jordan", the fertile river plains that Abraham and Lot surveyed from high up on the Judean hills between Bethel and Ai. But the first stop was Tall Kafrein, about 2km from Tall Hamman where we are digging. It is interesting that when Moses lists the cities of the plain he lists them from south to north, the theory being that as a good Egyptian he would list from what he knew was the most powerful nation of the time. In the order Sodom always comes before Gomorrah, and following the line of Talls south to north, the next one after Sodom is this one, the best candidate for Gomorrah there is.

In the centre of the plains we were about 1km from the Jordan river and you could clearly see the circle of hills that form, in Hebrew the "kikar" or disc of the Jordan. We could clearly see Jericho only 5-6kms away, but a world away with international bounderies, and above it in the haze the hills where Jerusalem is, and a little to the right the highest point where Bethel is. As you go around you see the Jordanian side and where Tall Hamman/ Sodom is, the higest hill of Mt Nebo/Pisgah where Moses surveyed the promised land from. On the drive back to Amman the bus broke down again at the top of the hill from the valley. The hose clip on the new hose to the radiator came off. It took an hour to fix. This is Jordan.

Tomorrow we are away on the trip to Petra that includes a 7 hour bus trip and four hours on site. Really looking forward to this one despite the very long day.

Jordan is still in a state of shock over the killing of their pilot, incensed would also describe the mood. Large protests are expected after Friday prayers tomorrow in support of King Abdullah and the governments stance on Daesh. When the King arrived back in the country yesterday after cutting short a trip to the US thousands of people lined the road to the airport, so I think the people we saw waving flags yesterday on the side of the road were part of that. The protest near the hotel was also a support protest, even so, events for us to stay well away from. Today the Jordanian airforce bombed Raqqah, the ISIS capital in Syria, and on the way back to base did a fly over of Amman and Karak, where the pilot came from. While ruling out ground attacks King Abdullah is promised a harsh response in helping to annihilate ISIS. I see in the NZ Herald that some were criticising John Key for suggesting that NZ should become involved over here at Waitangi. I think we should now that I'm here, especially in supporting Jordan as it copes with Daesh on its border and the 3 million refugees that they trying to look after.

We are still good and missing the tummy bugs and flu that has affected a number of the group over the last few days. It was 27C on site at 1pm. The weather forecaste for next Wednesday is for heavy rain, thunder storms with cold temperatures and snow at altiutude. Helen is saying she is glad we packed the thermals. This weekend about half the group are leaving with new people arriving to take their place. Only 3 out of 8 of the dig team I'm with are staying on. We are opening up a new square next week so my idea is to get the new flesh to clear it of the rocks to break them in quickly like we were.

I will be posting an extra blog soon to show you our discovery on the walk up the track to our dig site this morning.