Humayma April 21-May 6 Part One

On Tuesday April 21 I left Amman to start my two-week excavation season at Humayma, in the southern part of Jordan. Isabelle Rubin and I drove down to the town of Quwayra, where I had rented an apartment for the month. Anja Heidenreich and Ilse Sturkenboom had spent the past few days in Aqaba, so they came to Quwayra by bus, joined by the fifth staff member, Steven Werlin, currently a fellow at the Albright Institute in Jerusalem, who traveled to Eilat that morning and crossed over to Aqaba. Everybody arrived in Quwayra by late afternoon and we got settled in. That evening we were joined by Haroun Amarat, our representative from the Department of Antiquities office in Wadi Musa/Petra.

The next day, Wednesday April 22 was the first day of excavation at the site of Humayma, about a twenty-minute drive from Quwayra. Our dig vehicle seated five people comfortably. Unfortunately there were six of us, so Anja and Ilse had to squish into the front seat, which was okay for the short distance to the site.

The dig vehicle in front of our apartment building in Quwayra.

Our daily schedule was to leave for the site around 7:00 am, arriving around 7:30. We would take a break around 10:30 to 11:00 and then work until 2:00, returning to Quwayra around 2:30 pm.

I hired five local workmen.

Me in a dance line with the five local workmen

Hiring workmen has always been a hassle at Humayma, because there are a number of different bedouin families who live in the area who expect some of their family members to be hired. We would have preferred to hire workmen from only one family who live in a bedouin tent a few kilometers from the site, but as one person from another family who lives at the site told me, if I did not hire him and another member of his family there would be “trouble”. Hiring them worked out okay, although in general the bedouin workmen here are the least productive workmen I have ever had. I paid them a typical wage of 6 Jordanian dinars = 8.50 US dollars per day.

The group photograph of the staff and workmen

The workmen had a tea fire going much of the day, and for the 10:30-11:00 break they also cooked a substantial meal of tomato stew and eggs, along with the local variety of thin bread, supplemented by the yogurt, sardines, melon and the inevitable tomatoes and cucumbers that we would bring.

The mid-morning meal

A couple of the workmen spoke halting English, because they earn much of their living from tourists. But the other workmen spoke only a little English. Isabelle has been living in Jordan for many years and so her colloquial Arabic is very good; she often knew every-day colloquial words that I did not know.

On the last day, one of the workmen brought his camel, so we all took turns getting on. I have been on a camel only a few times, and only once for any distance.

Me on the camel