On Tell Abil

     It doesn't take as long to get the hang of digging as I had originally thought it might. And digging was not as miserable a job as I had originally feared either! Also, I soon learned how lucky those of us who worked up on top of the tell were, being up high enough that we actually got a nice breeze all morning long, while the people down below us working in the other areas weren't so fortunate. The few times that I had occasion to meander down into the valley to any of the other areas to see something, it felt as stifling hot as I imagined Hades might feel if I were to ever end up being sent down there (that is, if I weren't there already)! Over that summer I often liked to reflect on an idea that some people from hot climate areas have had of Hell, that it was a place so cold that you could never get warm! And while I could understand this, sometimes while I was digging I liked picturing myself sitting inside a huge walk-in refrigerator, or in an igloo, or anywhere it might be really cold! Rather than being hellacious, it seemed rather inviting!
     In any case, the one thing we couldn't deceive ourselves about was that we were all of us, regardless of how comfortable we might or might not have felt, still sweating out all our body fluids. J would get so irritated at any of the American workers who insisted that they never felt "all that thirsty." Dehydration is serious business, and J often had to remind us to stop what we were doing and drink some water. As he kept jokingly saying to each of us individually, "You're not a camel!" One result of dehydration, besides getting deathly sick to your stomach, is getting diarrhea, which further dehydrates a person, making them even sicker, a condition that would eventually keep some people bedridden back at camp. This, along with all the general "foreign" bacteria floating around which would find its way into our systems, also caused some people's bowls to react more violently than others'. So you might imagine what that often meant, off and on, during any given part of a day, but especially during the eight hours we were out in the field. Obviously, this had been an ongoing issue for every season of excavation at Abila, and while attempts had been made to construct an outdoor toilet (J had also told me a very funny story about the absolute failure of trying to build one using a variety of materials on hand that would not only stand up against the wind and the constant use, but would assure its user of complete privacy, and how they named it the "Harold" after their esteemed director, instead of the "John"), but nothing had ever worked. And so . . . what each of us one-by-one eventually discovered is that if and when we were absolutely going to have to relieve ourselves, we were going to have to go over the hill on the back side of the tell where no one was digging, squat down behind some of the taller briar bushes, and do it there. As for us girls, while we were appalled by the notion of having to make a public announcement whenever we had to go, we did always ask another female to go with us, more to keep watch than anything, but also to be able to report back if the other girl needed some form of help. Now, as I mentioned earlier, we all were instructed to carry toilet paper with us out to the field, and here's the reason why: to put it quite bluntly, out on that hillside there was nothing, either in vegetable or mineral form, that was going to do the job when it came time to wipe our bottoms! All joking aside, and being from West Virginia I've heard it all, how we use corn cobs, or Sears catalog pages, or whatever, and even though I had used an outhouse at my grandma's when we'd go down to the end of her holler to play by our great uncle's house (who didn't have indoor plumbing for a really long time) and have to use his, and while I've used port-a-potties at different outdoor events, this was something else altogether! Squatting to poop while someone you barely know stands with her back to you, only feet away?! Throwing used toilet paper down on the ground and watching it blow away or else get caught somewhere on some briars (and seeing that some girl on this dig had brought pink!)? Of course, this made those toilets back at camp seem plush. So see? Just when you think things can't get any worse, they really can! I remember one time looking over at the other hillside, seeing a shepherd herding his flock of sheep and goats, and realizing that it could take a long time before he would be ready to move on; and I really had to go! My worst fear was that even if he didn't have 20/20 eyesight, he might own a pair of binoculars! You never could be sure what those Bedouin might have. After all, they weren’t riding around on camels in Jordan anymore, they were driving small Toyota trucks!
     But what I’m saying is, out there, and on this whole trip basically, I had to learn to let go of my vanity, my pride, and everything else, eventually. And I learned a lot about myself in the process. It's amazing what you learn you're capable of doing, and how much you can adapt to new and challenging situations. I had never in my life been an outdoorsy kind of girl, but I was sort of proud of myself every time I made it through another "unusual" experience. My life as I had known it to be up to this point was going to change, and I think I was being changed in the process. Much like the process of going through a refiner's fire! God will not let us keep our original natures, especially if we ask Him to help us grow spiritually. But we'll only go through what we can handle a little at a time, and He'll provide so much fun and excitement along the way that you'll insist it was worth all the discomfort and pain! So while I would have to learn to squat out here on this hillside in Jordan (among a whole host of other embarrassing things I would find myself mixed up in), what I didn’t know was that very soon, actually later in the fall, I would reap an unexpected reward most unusual for a girl who grew up in a small town in West Virginia!

Touring Abila

     For the evening, we had scheduled a walking tour over the site, an area which included two hills, or tells, including Tell Abila, the area where J had been digging over several seasons. Areas A and AA contained the remains of two churches, and several other public buildings, and the remains of the city walls. We continued our walk down into a saddle area that housed the larger ancient city, all of this dating back about 5500 years, from around 4000 BC to AD 1500, including the Islamic, Byzantine, Roman, Greek, Iron, and Bronze ages.  In this area were the remains of several 7th and 8th century churches, paving stones of Roman roads, a cavea of what might have been a Roman theater, a possible Odeon, and several gates, and crossing the saddle were the remains of a bridge which led back up another hill. This entire area was bordered by olive orchards, the Wadi Qualibah, which was the spring and source of water for this once thriving ancient city, and tombs and tomb complexes. Walking back up the hill to area D, where columns with limestone capitals belonging to a 6th century Christian Basilica stood majestically reconstructed, we all took a break and sat down to receive a small devotion delivered by J. Out over in the fields we could see shepherds grazing their sheep. This seemed to set our minds on things more holy, things above us that were invisible, rather than things below that had once been hidden but which had now become visible. As I sat there listening to him, I reflected on the idea that what each of us is searching to find, whether it be lost cities, lost faith in God, or just lost parts of ourselves, lies below the surface of what we can actually see. Below what we allow others to see. The discipline of archaeology has been said to be one of destruction.  One must literally destroy each layer of dirt as it is uncovered in order to dig deeper into the past. As each chronological layer (or archaeological period) is uncovered, someone has to make the decision whether or not to continue digging deeper, or to let that history forever represent what story gets told. Someone has to decide whether or not it's worth going deeper. However, once the decision is made to continue digging, the previous season's excavations can never be repeated. What was uncovered will soon be gone. As I sat there listening to J and observing the stones and rubble and loose dirt that lay over the earth's surface all around me, and the restructuring that had taken place and was yet to take place, I began to catch a glimpse of how a person might learn to love all this. It made me think about our own stories, and what gets told and what stays covered under layers of dirt. It made me wonder about what I might uncover during this long, hot summer, and whether it would be worth what I was going to have to endure to dig it up. And how many seasons of my life would it take? In the closing of his devotion, J prayed, thanking God for this opportunity, and asking Him to bless this season's dig, and to watch over and protect everyone on it over the next eight weeks. I added to his my own prayer: Dear God, give me the courage to walk down whatever road you open up before me. As the sun was setting in the sky, we walked back to the buses, and drove back to camp.

Journaling is like Excavating Your Life

     An anonymous writer once said that keeping a journal is like excavating your life, that the more you write, the deeper you dig and the more you learn about yourself, uncovering the many layers before you discover the original self.  I particularly liked this analogy, not just as a writer and journaler, but as an "armchair archaeologist."  It made me think that the self could be likened to a tell (which is a mound found all around the Middle East, composed of the remains of successive settlements built  over hundreds and hundreds or more years). I have learned over the years as I have  traveled throughout the Middle East and Turkey how to (most of the time) recognize an unexcavated tell. While many tells have been excavated by archaeologists, especially since the 19th century, there are still so many more that are waiting to unearth their secrets, to say "I was once a great city full of life and commerce." Or maybe even declare itself as once having been in its glory days  an active religious center like Colossae in Asia Minor (which we know today as Turkey), where the seven churches, or cities that are mentioned in the Book of Revelations can still be identified.
     Though I am not an archaeologist by profession or otherwise, I have learned an awful lot about it in the years since I married my husband in 1993. Since the early 1980s he has been part of two excavations, one in northern Jordan close to the Syrian border, and one in central Jordan in the Kerak plateau.  I have been fortunate to have traveled with him over much of the Middle East, throughout Turkey and Greece, and most of Western Europe.  While this is not his story, nor is it in the least academic in nature, it's mine, and I've come to see it as being valid in its own right, especially  in terms of my personal observations and experiences. And like so many of the wives (or male spouses) of near eastern archaeologists, we each have our own stories to tell: of life behind-the-scenes in the dig camps, and about the variety of work done in the field, including how it is to work alongside both the natives and the other foreigners; about selling archaeology to starry-eyed college students who want and expect to have more of an "Indiana Jones" experience; about some of the gossip we've all heard about various well-known, as well as lesser-known archaeologists; about sharing slides and introducing Biblical archaeology into the local churches; about what it's like taking students on Bible Land tours to the Middle East before 9/11, and to Greece and Turkey after 9/11, plus all of the other related traveling we've done abroad, and of  the vastness of the cross-cultural experiences; and finally, how it all had to work at home.
     This is my story. I hope in telling it I dig up some yet uncovered part of myself.