Sifting: The First Two Days

 

The sifting station. You can see the mount of dirt that has been sifted out underneath the mesh tray. The bucket hanging on the right is where the pottery sherds and other things of interest we find are placed. Nice view of the countryside which you can enjoy as you are sifting (as long as there's not too much dust in your eyes)

After my unplanned and much-needed respite in Washington DC over the weekend, my new flight to Jordan went off without incident.  I left Washington DC Monday afternoon, June 20 and made a quick hop over to Boston where I had a three hour layover.  I then boarded a Lufthansa flight for a red-eye to Frankfurt, Germany.  I arrived around noon in Frankfurt (6 AM EST) on Tuesday, June 21 and I had a nine hour layover there.  While I could have left the airport to try to see a few quick sights, I was too exhausted to even think about passing through immigration and finding my way around an unfamiliar city. My final flight left Frankfurt around 9:30 PM and I landed in Amman, Jordan a little before 3 AM on Wednesday, June 22.

Walking off the plane into a completely unfamiliar culture was both exhilarating and intimidating.  Fortunately I had help, someone local that the field school had tasked with meeting me at the gate, guiding me through immigration and the visa process, and helping me collect my bags. He handed me off to a waiting car and we sped off into the night. The Jordanian landscape at night was reminiscent of Texas, with its vast, sprawling landscapes. The most memorable part of that drive was when the driver changed the radio station from Arabic pop to the plaintive call to the first prayers of the morning.  It was spine-tingling to hear the radio call blend seamlessly with the one blaring from a nearby green-lit mosque.  

By the time I arrived at the Salome Hotel and got into my room, breakfast was only an hour away.  I decided to just go ahead and stay up until then so that I could meet the team and get a sense of what my day might look like. I was tired, but excited and while I secretly hoped I might take the morning off to sleep and recover, I was encouraged to go ahead and go out to the dig site with the team.  Even if I didn't actually do anything other than watch, being out there instead of being in my hotel bed would probably be better for beating jet lag.

This is where we have our meals at the Salome Hotel

So at 6 AM, I piled onto the bus with the rest of the team and headed for Tall Hisban.  Tall Hisban looms over the nearby village, providing a commanding view of the surrounding area. It has been occupied by successive cultures for thousands of years. The first archeological surveys of Tall Hisban set out to find evidence of the Biblical kingdom of Heshbon.  Though the site has not yet proved be the location of Biblical Heshbon, it remains a a treasure trove of information about the people who have lived in this area over the millennia, from the Islamic period, through the periods of Greek and Roman occupation, and stretching back to the Iron Age.  

The acropolis at the top of Tall Hisban, left over from the Greek and Roman period

The view from the top of Tall Hisban. It was unusually cloudy the first day I was on site, Wednesday, June 22.  The next day was more typical--clear skies with only a little haze.

I was eager to get my hands dirty (literally) so instead of watching the others, I had them put me to work. I started out clearing out some grass roots from one of the four 5 meter by 5 meter squares we are working on this season.  This week has been devoted to "clean-up"--removing the plant growth and other debris that has taken over the site since the last dig, as well as the top soil--ahead of excavation proper. But even during the clean up phase, we track everything we do.  Top soil and it's attendant debris was dumped into to rubber containers called guffahs and transported to sifters that were stationed on another part of the tall.  I ended up spending most of my morning working on the sifter.  The guffahs are dumped into a sifter, which allows the dirt to be filtered out leaving behind rocks and pebbles, some roots, and quite a few items of archaeological interest--mostly pottery sherds, but also, tesserae (the cubes  that were once part of a mosaic), bones, some glass, and even the occasional piece of metal.  The sifter removes these items from the sifter and drops them into a pottery bucket to be washed and then "read."  Bones, glass, and metal are placed into their own paper or plastic bags in the bucket.

Me, covered in dust, after a morning of sifting. It was actually a bit chilly in the mornings--enough that I found my hoodie came in handy. I had only brought it to wear on the plane, but I've been using it everyday on the site so far, at least for the first few hours before it warms up.

Sifting is probably the dirtiest job on the site. Even though the sifters are positioned so that dust blows away from the sifter, in a matter of minutes I was coated in blowing dirt and my eyes were stinging from the dust.  Still the work was fairly straightforward: Dump in a guffah or two, taking care to tally each guffah on our digital counter, shake the sifter until all the soil is filtered out and then pick through the remaining detritus for the pottery and other items, and drop them in the bucket.  Then do it all again.  The trick was to work fast enough so that the filled guffahs didn't start to pile up around the sifting station, slowing down the work of those excavating, but also not going so fast that we ended up missing and dumping out important finds. Most of the morning I worked with a Jordanian university student named Sina. She and I got into a good rhythm of doing a two guffah-one guffah cycle of sifting that kept us from falling behind.  Despite it's gritty nature, I liked sifting. You actually find a lot more than those doing the excavating--at least that's how it seemed to me.

The morning's work was broken by "second breakfast" around 9 AM. We all trooped down to a house on the dig site where we had a light breakfast of pitas filled with veggies, hummus, and pickles, as well as wedges of sweet, juicy melons, all washed down with hot tea.  Then it was back to work on the site.

This was second breakfast on my second day. Zaatar bread (a flat bread covered in olive oil and thyme I think) and hot sweetened tea.  Delicious!

Second breakfast

Work for the day concluded around noon and we were transported to a nearby community center where we were served lunch by some of the local ladies.  Lunch was huge platters of rice with potatoes and chicken and a tabbouleh-like salad. 

After lunch we were bussed back to the hotel and were more or less free for the afternoon.  There's time for an afternoon siesta and then many of the university students had coursework to complete or even classes with their professors here on the dig.  In previous years they've devoted a couple of hours to pottery reading as well, though this year they are trying to do most if not all of the pottery washing and reading in the morning concurrent with the excavation work. 

I ended up with my own room--at least for the time being. The guy I was supposed to room with contracted COVID and was just getting out of isolation when I arrived.  With three beds in the room, I have a purpose for each one. The one on the right is for sleeping at night, the one of the left is where I change and put my clothing (don't have to worry about getting where I sleep dusty), and the last bed. . .

. . . is reserved for my afternoon naps!

I thought for sure I would sleep, but I didn't really start to get sleepy until about an hour before supper, so I forced myself to stay awake.  I had spent the afternoon getting settled in my room and had attempted to blog a little, but my brain was too exhausted for that.  I ended up staying awake by reading the gripping thriller No Exit. I could not go to sleep while reading that book!  Supper was at 6 PM and by a little after 8 PM, I was out for the night.

I slept pretty well and woke up around 4:30 AM feeling refreshed and energized for the day.

The second day, Thursday, June 23,, it was mainly my hands that got dirty rather than all of  me as I worked on excavating top soil on the square I was assigned to. Most of what I excavated was easy for me to miss in the piles of dirt I was scooping into the guffah.  But I did find  a few larger sherds, including one that qualified as a diagnostic piece.  Diagnostic pieces have identifying marks (a handle, a rim, writing etc) that enable the archaeologist to tell more about the original object.  They are not as common as the "body sherds"--pieces of pottery without those elements, and so it's always exciting to find one.

My diagnostic find

The part of the square where I worked Thursday. I'm only here temporarily. I'll be assigned my permanent square next week.

Excavation tools. I used the trowel the most. You do mostly scraping, not actual digging with the pick because you don't want to risk damaging things you might find.

I napped Thursday afternoon for an hour and a half. I could have slept longer but didn't want to mess up my sleep that night. After dinner I went walking around the down with Dr. Stacie Hatfield, the cultural anthropologist on the team, her husband Aaron, and two of the Andrews University students, Christin and Lydia. We ended up at this charming bookshop with a nice little outdoor café on the lower level and spent a couple of hours getting to know each other over tea. Since it was the weekend (the weekend in Jordan is Friday and Saturday, so Thursday night is kind of their version of "Friday night") I stayed up a little later since I didn't have to get up early the next morning.

At the Kawon bookstore cafe, Thursday evening, June 23

So far I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of my experience here.  It's a bit intimidating--it's hard being new at something and not feeling very competent.  But everyone is encouraging and supportive. I'm also somewhat overwhelmed--both by figuring out how and when to document this experience as well thinking about how I'm going to turn this all into my 6th-8th grade social studies theme next year. It all feels like more than I can process.  But I'm sure that will come together as I get settled in.  I am tired as well--the combination of the heat, the work, and some jet lag make it hard for me to settle down and organize this experience into a narrative.  Right now, I'm just filling guffahs and struggling to keep up with sifting this experience.  The "reading"--the analysis and understanding of it all will come later. 

After the excavation, the sifting, and the washing comes the reading of the pottery: identifying and making sense of what we've found.