The Ancient Face For Justin Moore

Ashkelon Dig

This is one a many bones I excavated at the Canaanite tombs in Ashkelon. 

My nephew Justin is getting married today and said that this is his favorite picture on my archaeology blog.

The ancient man  had a nice smile and not one cavity in it as there was no sugar in his diet. What does that tell us?

The hotel in the back ground is where the dig team lived for seven weeks.

An Overview

Anytime I am digging in Petra I can look up and be awe struck by the totally awesome views. On the one hand you have the stark desert and then you notice the rainbow of colors in the sandstone and the awesome blue of the sky.

Viewing the ruins of two past civilizations in Petra both Nabataian and Roman one can stare and contemplate the vast history of a single place. The young man dumping the dirt just stood there holding the handle of the wheelbarrow and stared at the scene. He had to be called back to work.

Yes that happened to me as well.

Draw Every Last Stone

One of the last things you do on a dig is to draw it to scale.

Elaine checking the Measuring Line

On our last Saturday, our day off, Elaine and I measured and drew every last paving stone on this plaza to scale/

Elanie took this picture of me drawing the plaza

It was a very hot day but very rewarding for us to complete this task and not have to return on Sunday.

Lessor Tombs

The rock faces of Petra were covered with tombs. Every where you looked you could find them for Kings, wealthy, and not so wealthy carved in to the rock.

I am standing by a tomb with more tombs in the back ground

You can see lots of tombs in the rock face far in the distance. Now look just to the left of my feet and see that square hole in the rock. That is a tomb of a  not so wealthy citizen of Petra. They dug straight down and dropped th poor fellow in feet first. The mixed a kind of cement with the excavated rock and filled it up.

You do what you have to do.

Petra Fault Line

A geologist friend of mine is studying the Great Rift Valley in East Africa. I asked her about the Jordan River Valley Rift and Earthquakes there. She thought it is an interesting tectonic region so I sent her this picture.

This is me by a fault from the 363 AD Earthquake

The shift in the rock strata is dramatic and that quake in 363 AD brought down most of the free standing building in Petra including the Temple I have been digging that is now known as "The temple of the winged lions"  I hope some day to go back there to finish that dig.