Amy's friends

09 June

Our concern for the tombs in the wheat fields grows. So far, our guard has located 13 of them, all collapsed or in the process of collapsing. This is a new area of tombs for us. We excavated some to the north of the tell proper in 1995, but these new ones are all located to the south. And yet, according to the official agreements, neither of these areas are now considered archaeological. It’s all linked to the idea of cash-cropping and, yes you could say, greed.

I understand the desire to better the standard of living -- grow more crops to make more money to buy more Pringles and bootleg DVDs (the staples of Syria apparently) -- but I also understand the desire to protect cultural heritage. It is easy to prove that these tombs, as well as the overlying outer town, are archaeological and that the extent of the protected site should go well beyond the high tell and inner city wall. Looking at a Google Earth picture will demonstrate the clear expanse of the site, the outer town wall is clearly visible and in fact some occupation expands beyond this. Yet, from some 45 hectares, we are reduced to only about 15 that is now protected by the Department of Antiquities.

[Google maps of Sweyhat]

(looks like this link works, it's a little off-center but you can see Sweyhat in the upper left and the outer town wall is clearly visible in the cultivated areas. Tell Hajji Ibrahim is also visible, much smaller but a brown dot in the middle of a field to the south east. Here's an old satellite photo as comparison:
 

Oh well, it’s their decision. It is a shame, however, that the tombs are opening up due to major irrigation works and the farmers themselves don’t want gaping holes in their fields. They want them filled in so the land becomes available again for growing another handful of wheat and/or cotton. But the department is saying that the tombs need to be investigated. And yet, they won’t let us do it. It has become the duty of the Raqqa museum.

Unfortunately, the Raqqa museum doesn’t have the manpower, the equipment, the time, or the money to excavate 13 tombs. We don’t either. But we could do one or two and backfill the rest. The battle rages on, and we don’t know if, when, who or how these tombs will be dealt with. The big worry is that they will remain open and then be looted, leaving no information for anyone. For now, we have to forget about them and await rulings from the powers that be.

And of course, we have our site to worry about. Even at only around 15 hectares, there is still a great deal of material here. In fact, we have other graves popping up all over the place, inside our jurisdiction. In virtually every operation from 101-104, we have at least one burial, and often several. These are Seleucid graves, cut into the old inner city wall area and into the mid-third millennium occupation there. In the time of the Seleucids this area was no longer occupied. Instead, the Seleucids themselves inhabited the area north around the main tell and the top of the mound as well. We used to feel that the occupation of this period was not overly extensive, but were puzzled by the enormous pits that were clearly Seleucid in origin. Now we know there is much more Post-Alexander inhabitation on the tell and we are exploring much of that in Op 100.

The Seleucids are named after Alexander the Great’s general Seleucus. He was the one who, in the aftermath of Alex’s death, got control of the part of the massive empire that extended outward from Syria across Persia to the borders of India. The other generals who split the territory were Antigonus in Macedonia and Ptolemy in Egypt. Thus, the occupation of which I speak, spawning so many graves and major trash pits, is post 323 BC, the only major occupation on our site beyond about 2000 BC.

The graves are simple interments, mostly flexed or at least partially flexed, but they are not easy to dig by any means. Talk about ‘sink or swim’ archaeology. The students are fascinated by human remains, but face the challenge of properly excavating, documenting, and removing the bones from a clay-like soil that is not kind to bone. We give them as much assistance as we can, but mainly let them move at a slow pace that means we will have less time to investigate the mid third millennium beneath, one of our primary goals for these trenches.

One of the burials is particularly intriguing. Placed inside a clay ‘bathtub’ (called a larnax in Greek), this burial is somewhat unusual for the area. The larnax is in the background of this picture, a covered cist grave is in the foreground.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/07/04/2294803.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/07/04/2294780.htm

For those guys here who have purchased a Lola-Jake, how long did it take you to receive your item?  Did you receive any communication from them at all regarding your order?  It's been 31 business days since I placed my order and their website says 21 days max for delivery.  The only email I've received from them was a receipt for payment.  Otherwise all communication has been initiated by me.  I was told it would ship a week ago Monday, and when it didn't arrive I was told it would ship last friday and would take 3 days.  And here it is 4 business days later (nearly a week) and NO ITEM.  I inquired yesterday and have yet to receive any tracking number.

Yes I'm a bit impatient but I also feel I forked over good money ($600) and deserve a little bit more communication.  Is this normal for them?

Getting frustrated.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/07/04/2294434.htm

http://nixwilliams.blogspot.com/2008/07/so-you-think-australia-is-full-of.html

08 June

Nefileh is expanding. It had only a few hundred residents when I first started working at the nearby tell but now it’s in the thousands. It’s also increasing in complexity. Now there are cell phones in virtually every villager’s hand, fluorescent lights in front of every door, motorcycles, combine harvesters, water pumps, a few satellite dishes and even a kind of general store. Of course, the man who runs the store works as a pickman on the tell, so it’s not often open in the daytime.

The village, once of mudbrick nestled in the harsh steppe, mainly making its living off of sheep, has become an agricultural machine. Intensification means more luxuries for some of the people and it means an expanding population can be supported, at least for a while. Now, they no longer build in mudbrick, but have brought in cinderblocks; buildings made of this material can go up quickly and relatively cheaply. Their farm machinery is increasingly more sophisticated and the extent of their cultivable land has jumped. So has their seeming greed.

Cost of living, naturally, increases in this kind of world and worker’s salaries are up comparatively. Costs in Syria have been rising at a rate of about 30% a year over the past few. And with the declining dollar, it all signals trouble for us.

Along with the rise in complexity and density of population, come other struggles. I refer to rising crime rates. I’ve always said that there is no violent crime in Syria. That’s still largely true, even though there are harsh rivalries between tribes in the Djezira that can lead to killings. Maybe the harshness of punishment in a police state deters most violent crime, or maybe -- as Adam Ant would say -- “What’s the point of robbery when nothing is worth taking?”

With rising standard of living, however, what you really get is an increasing distance between the haves and the have-nots. I believe this leads to discontent and, in turn, to rising crime rates. Why do I harp on this? Because last night I was, for the first time in the real sense of the word, a victim of robbery in Syria.

[--My house, one of the concrete foundation, mudbrick superstructure types. Wood is at a premium, so most doors are made of sheet metal, like this one. Inside is barren except one post helping to support the roof and a set of plastic flowers hanging from a beam. The whole roof is made of narrow wooden beams supporting newspaper and plastic which in turn support clay.--]

Perhaps you could say it was my fault for not putting a lock on my door. But I’ve been working in Nefileh off and on since 1996 and have never had to lock my door. Oh, it’s true that occasionally a pen would go missing from our office/lab or maybe some paper clips (which became a legendary tale -- years ago when we casually mentioned our paperclips had gone missing, the town immediately turned itself upside down searching for them and the culprits, two young boys, were soundly clipped round the ears and had to apologize profusely, returning every one of them). This time, however, my room was entered, ransacked, and a Swiss army knife, $40, my Syrian change, and an old cell phone were taken from me.

It could have been much worse, and when I reported it to our representative, he quickly found those responsible, or so he said. He produced a $20 bill that had been torn in pieces and said that it was children who did it, for only children would lack the understanding of money so as to tear it up. Perhaps this was true, I don’t know, but the story that my door was wide open and thus led the children to investigate was blatantly false, I always close my door, if not lock it. Needless to say, from then, and now and forever, I will be padlocking my door in the once-docile little village that is opening to the modern world so quickly.

Current Location: Amman

Current Mood: confused

Current Music: Stand and Deliver

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/07/03/2293292.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/07/03/2291046.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/07/03/2293114.htm

I'm going to be in Atlanta for Dragon*Con.  Can anyone around there give me suggestions for places to eat or obtain supplies?  I see there are Trader Joes and Whole Foods, but is there a nice restaurant or store anyone can recommend?

Thanks!

07 June

The season progresses and we now have a horde of workers on the tell. From the intended 40 we have expanded to over 50. I have two sets of them, one in Op 34 and one in Op 42. We have not yet begun the big temple cut, but are starting in 34 by tearing out part of the addition wall in the north to see the earlier phase and will then progress to a cut through the raised cella in the east to have a look at its construction. It feels odd to tear into such a major construction that has survived for nearly 5 millennia, but it is the only way to understand it completely. Not only that, the elements are taking their toll already and the latest phases are melting away with the winter rains and summer winds.

And those winds are buffeting us badly today. It’s nice to have a breeze, but a howling wind is another story. Only a few years ago, they would have carried so much sand that we would have been unable to work at all. In those days, less of the Djezira (the area in which we are working in, literally translated as ‘island’ though it is really the extensive spit of land between the Euphrates and the Balikh) was under cultivation and so the sandy topsoil would easily sweep up and form walls of orange looming in the distance. And when it reached you, it was as if you’d been transported inside one of the brick walls we excavate, not being able to see anything and having the oppressive weight of the desert bearing down upon your chest. Now there is so much irrigation due to the global economic phenomenon of cash-cropping that the soil tends to stay down, except in the immediate vicinity of our excavations. Thus, our own backdirt chokes us but not quite so badly that we have to end work. Perhaps we should have, but we feel the need to remain since we’ve already lost so many days.

The worst part of the self-created sand whirls (ajaj as they are called in Arabic) is what it does to our eyes. It is difficult to see and many of us tie our khafiyes around our faces and put sunglasses over what might remain, the Secret Agent Bedouin look. Yet still we have sand in our eyelashes and constant pain in and around our eyelids.

We persevere. Only to subject ourselves to it once more in the afternoon.

Our schedule is intense. We awake at 4am, have breakfast at 4:15 and arrive at the tell by 5. We work till 9:30, take a half hour break, then hit it again until 12:30. Lunch is at 1:30 and we rest from 2-4, then work again, either in the ‘lab’ or back out at the site, often until 8. Dinner is at 8:30 and I try to go to bed not long after 9. Many of the younger set stay up, drink the whiskey they brought from Aleppo, and smoke the nargileh.

I set my workers in 34 to their task and spend most of my time giving the students a feel for the excavation and what is expected of them. They are keen to learn but are having difficulty with the wind, as are we all. We decide to move the spoil heap to the east so that we can make sure to have a true 10x10 meter unit over the scraps of what Op 42 had been in the past year. Now it will be squared up and make for a true unit. Here, however, the tell originally sloped heavily and we had been placing dirt from excavations in the region for years. Now it has to come down and this type of soil is particularly loose, adding to our sandstorm.