by Lucy Hartlieb
Over the past few months, I have been looking forward to my upcoming trip to Jordan. I started to prepare by researching, reading, and trying my very best to pack enough supplies to last me for my amazing 5 week adventure. And now I am finally here!!!
My first week in Jordan is now complete and it was quite an eventful one. The usual dig schedule is from 5 am to 12:30 pm Sunday through Thursday, weekends in Jordan are Friday (the Muslim Holy Day) and Saturday. But for the first week, we focused on off-site work. We spent time getting settled in, touring the city, and learning about the various lab assignments to come.
Most of us arrived at the dig house on Thursday, July 29th. Our dig house is in a small neighborhood in Madaba, a suburb of Jordan’s capital city Amman. The communal-living style house is made up of 3 apartments, shared with students, supervisors, and volunteers.
Friday (June 30) was our first full day in Jordan. We spent it getting to know our housemates, getting an orientation for the field school, and taking part in a walking tour of Madaba. On the tour, Dr. Deb Foran led us around to nearby archaeological sites. We started by visiting the Madaba Archaeological Museum, which is located a mere 30 seconds away. The museum featured some artifacts that were excavated in previous years by students at our site. Next stop was the Christian Orthodox Church of St. George which contains the 6th century Mosaic Map of the Holy Land.
After that we visited Madaba’s Archaeological Park which has mosaics from different sites near Madaba displayed on the walls, as well as many in situ mosaics that date to the 6th century C.E. Lastly, on our way back to our new home we made a stop at Tell Madaba, an archaeological site located in the middle of the city that was previously excavated by our director and professor Deb Foran.
The next day was Canada Day. It was a relaxing day. We were assigned our supervisors and we met with our groups to go over the excavation manual. After lunch, we ventured out on a 15 minute bus ride to our dig site for a site tour. The site of Khirbat al-Mukhayyat overlooks the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea, and the West Bank. Later that night we hosted a Canada Day party on the roof of the dig house. Jordanians and other visiting archaeologists came for the celebration.
On Sunday and Monday we were separated into various groups of four to practice different lab techniques such as pottery drawing, soil sampling, section and top plan drawing, and pottery registration. Sunday was also our first lecture on the Early Bronze Age of the Levant.
We had a great week and are all very excited for our first day on site!!