Moving from Amman to Camp

We moved from the capital of Jordan, Amman to a town near the excavation. So we have left a large modern city for much more remote areas.

This is a scene in Amman, with all of the modern things you would expect in a large city. In fact our hotel is directly across the street from a large 5 story mall, with a movie theater, coffee shop, bank, and other shopping.

Some of us saw a moviw here at the Mall and also had a hamburger at the McDonalds inside the Mall.

We also stopped at a nearby Safeway to pick up last minute items. This Safeway has everything from gourmet nuts to pools for the backyard. We mostly got peanut butter and snacks.

Here are our good friends and bus drivers, Hussein and Salah, they help us in many ways through out the excavation season. Their main job is to drive us from the camp to the excavation site. They have worked with us for years.

Here is a picture of Nidal and Adnan our local contacts who specialize in travel arrangements. They are father and son. They are like family to us and they make contacts and arrangements for us to rent vehicles and get supplies and lodging.

After leaving Amman we head along the desert highway. Here you can see a water pipe that is being installed along the highway to bring water into the fast growing city of Amman.

 Here is another view of the water pipe in the dusty desert along the Desert Highway of Jordan.

Here Dr. Jerry Mattingly, Johnson University, director of the project (on the right) discusses plans with Dr. John Wineland, Kentucky Christian University while you see Dr. Gerald Keown from Garner-Webb University in the back. You can also see the truck we rented to load materials from the Amman warehouse to haul them to the excavtion site.

Here is John Wineland with Adnan and Nidal after lunch. In the background you can see the walls of a Crusader castle. There is much history in Jordan.

Here the truck with our excavation supplies arrives in a village near to the excavation site. Adnan helps direct the activities of the unloading of the supplies into a small storage area.

Here the crew joins in to get the truck unloaded. These supplies are essential to our work in the field, they include picks, hoes, shifts, buckets, guffahs, sledgehammers, and even our homemade port-a-potty.

Here Hussein helps load the supplies the temporary storage in the village, you can see our ladder, shifts and other supplies.

 

Here Philip Eubanks, Johnson University and John Mark Wade Emmanuel Christian Seminary finish unloading the truck.

Jerry Mattingly announces that the unloading process is complete and it is lunch time.