Jurash

Me at the Jurash excavation

The dig team flew into Abha, the capital of the Asir province on August 3 and we were met by our Saudi colleagues, who took us to a school that served as our dig house on the outskirts of the nearby city of Khamis Mushayt. The dig house is about a kilometer from our excavation site of Jurash.

Jurash is a large city site spanning the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods. The core part of the site of some 500 m by 200 m is surrounded by a fence, as are many other archaeological sites in Saudi Arabia. We spent three weeks this first season working at the site.

I excavated a 3 x 3 meter trench on a high mound down to a depth of 2 meters, but we did not bottom out during the 13 work days available. My trench had a couple of mudbrick walls and lots of garbage dump layers of ash filled with animal bones. The lower levels of my square produced virtually no pottery, so I do not really know the dates of what I was excavating, although my layers seemingly spanned numerous centuries. This season was only the second time that I have actually excavated a trench with multiple phases of occupation and lots of mud brick, as opposed to single-phase buildings defined by standing stone architecture.

My excavation trench at the start of the season

My excavation trench at the end of the season

We had 20 workmen, all Pakistanis from the region around Peshawar, who spoke Pushtu but only halting Arabic; 18 of the 20 had “Khan” as part of their names. My four workmen were the best that I have ever had. The workmen received a salary of 35 US dollars a day and stayed in a tent on the site.

My four Pakistani workmen

We worked at the site from 7:00 am to 12:00 and then returned to the school and had an afternoon session from 4:00 to 6:00 back at the site. Our first day we worked in the afternoon from 3:00 to 5:00, but the afternoon prayer time came around 3:30. The Pakistani workmen stopped work to pray, while we continued to work. That was not a problem for us, but the neighbors living in the apartment buildings adjacent to the site complained about us working through the prayer time, so we shifted our schedule to 4:00 to 6:00.

Jurash is over a kilometer high up in the Asir mountain range, so the temperatures were moderate, with daily highs in the low 80s/high 20s. The 4:00 to 6:00 period was especially pleasant. It even rained a couple of afternoons, including one substantial downpour with hail.

The set-up in our dig house / school was great. The dig team was so small that we each got our own private class room with carpeting and air conditioners, which however we did not really need to use. The meals prepared by a cook and assistant from Sudan were the best I have had on an excavation. The only thing lacking in the school was an internet connection.

Our dinner table at the school / dig house

The dig team consisted of seven of us from the US and Canada, directed by David Graf, from the University of Miami, all with lots of previous excavation experience, along with our Saudi colleagues. It did not work out to have women on the team for this first season although some women may join for the second season next year.

Due to security concerns we were always escorted by police whenever we went to the site, or anywhere else. At the end of the first week, people from the US embassy in Riyadh came to visit the site, including the deputy chief of mission with his convoy of security guards. We had a big banquet at the school for them.

The banquet with the US embassy staff