Caged Art

Here is a follow up picture of the caged art and you can see  how much has been chipped of and damaged over the years. There is also smoke damage from cooking fires. You can see why it had to be protected.

Take Lots of Pictures

One of the things we do during a dig season is take lots of pictures. I am so thankful for the invention of the digital camera. I took hundreds of pictures and did not have to develop any of them to see them. It was so easy to shoot and then look at the picture. If it was a bad shot I deleted it and retook the photo.

In this picture my friend Eudora is taking a picture of two thousand year old art work. It is behind bars to protect it from tourist who use to remove small pieces of it. Grrrr.

Survey The Dig

The first week of the dig included the job of doing a survey of the dig site. All of us took our turn with the equipment. Our starting point was several survey markers placed by official surveyor's when the dig began. Then we checked the markers placed by the previous dig team.

Only then were we ready to set the markers for our dig.

I chuckle to  notice how clean and fresh our clothes were. That was about to change when we started digging in the dirt.

Digging In Petra for missing pieces

As I look at this picture that I took in 2002 I remember the excitement we felt after we found this column stone in this place. This was actually the base for the column that once stood there. We did not however find the rest of the column so the question is "What happened to it?"

This is not all that was missing. Most of the stones that made up the walls were also gone. But where?

In 363 AD an earthquake shook Petra and this temple shook apart. By that time most of the people in Petra had converted to the new religion, Christianity. Just up the hill from this temple is a big Christian Church That was built some years after the big earthquake. The fact that there were a lot of precut stones just down the hill was attractive to the builders. Much of the old crumbled pagan temple became part of the Christian Church in Petra.

That practice happened all over the Roman empire.

Da Vinci

My darling and I visited the Frazier History Museum on Friday to see a temporary exhibit called “Da Vinci – The Genius.”

This exhibit has models of many of the machines that Da Vinci drew in h is note books. I have seen the pictures in books but it is a very different experience to view them physically. For most exhibits there are signs that tell us not to touch but this one has a group of his inventions that are hands on and we were invited to not only touch but operate. Can I say THRILLED!

If you get a chance to see this exhibit when it visits a museum near you GO! It is worth the time, effort and money. 

Roman Admin Building

For many years this ruin in Petra was identified as a great temple. It looked like it could be just that but as the dig progressed the evidence pointed to it being a Roman era administration building.

 In 106 AD the Romans finally conquered Petra and this is what they built to demonstrate their power. The final discovery was in the basement they found a Roman Bath that had to be constructed prior to the rest of the building.

Idol Worship

I have seen a lot of idols that people once worshiped in places where I dig.

This idol of the goddess Allot was found in the Temple of the Winged Lions in Petra. The people of Petra were fond of what I call "Block Deities"

People have worshiped all sorts of idols over the years. When I was in India I visited a temple that had over a thousand different idols. The covered all the bases in one temple.