Today's digging

I worked hard at the dig site today with shovel and trowel digging in privies. We naturally discovered a lot of broken pottery and glass with lots of cooked bones. More interesting things were buttons, a doll arm and what looked like a bayonet.

These two complete bottles were very nice.

As was this wine bottle also in great shape.

One of our diggers deep in an old privy.
It was a great day, now it is nice to be home resting.

My New Dig

Up to now all my digging has been in the Holy Land but I was invited to do a historical dig here in Louisville and spent Wednesday digging there and will go back there again. This is a downtown site where the land is being cleared to build an new and very large hotel. Evidence of previous building calls for an archaeological dig to see what is there. in the 1820's new homes were built on the south side of what was then Louisville and is now downtown. These were the home of well to do business people. At that time they did not have trash pickup for anyone and no indoor plumbing. Privies were out back and all kinds of waste went down the hole.

This privy was build before 1853 and we can tell that because it was not lined with bricks.

This one was built after Louisville passed a law that made all new privies be lined with brick. Digging these out will be interesting. We will be able to tell a lot about their daily life by what we find in them.

Digging again

While visiting the Portland Museum in Louisville the guide said that she is an archaeologist and talked about digging slave quarter sites in Kentucky. In a conversation she told me about the Kentucky Archaeological Survey about to dig on the new construction site at the Louisville Omni Hotel. She gave me the email address of the director of the dig and I have been accepted. They have found three 19th century privies that they will dig up and sift. Since people use to throw all kinds of things down a privy we may well find a lot of interesting stuff. I will likely be doing a lot of sifting and sorting the objects found. It will be great to once again be digging even if it is not Petra or Israel.

The Petra Temple

The Temple of the Winged Lions from the air.

This is the archaeological site I worked on in 2002 and 2005

Dr. Philip C. Hammond

Dr. Philip C. Hammond was the Director of the Temple of the Winged Lions excavation in Petra Jordan.

He had been excavating archaeological sites in Jordan for more than fifty years when this picture was taken. This was the last time he visited the dig site in 2005. Sadly he died before we could return.

Dr. Hammond was an awesome archaeologist and I learned a lot from him in the two years I dug with him and the summer I visited his home for a week and studied his library and samples from the dig.  I long to go back to Petra and finish the dig. It is almost done but no one is digging there now. Some day!

Ten Years Ago

It is time to walk down memory lane of ten years ago when I was on my second trip to Petra and my first to dig with Dr. Hammond at the Temple of the Winged Lions.

Seated at the table are Lin Hammond the dig administrator, Dr. Philip Hammond the dig director and Eudora Struble the Field Supervisor. This picture was taken in Amman the night before drove to Petra.

Eudora was a young woman whom I met on my dig in Ashkelon in 1999 and we remain friends. She is now writing her doctoral dissertation for the University of Chicago.

Six weeks of excavation were ahead of us and they were the leadership team that kept us on track and very active.

Another Papyrus Ebers Rx

A Remedy to Regulate Evacuation

Honey

Sasa-seeds

Wormwood

Elderberry

Berries of the uan-tree

Kernel of the ut’ait fruit

Caraway

Aaam seed

Xam seed

Sea salt

Form into a suppository and put into the rectum.

I wondered when those suppositories were invented. 3400 BC! Doctors!!!