Jurash July 23-August 18 Part 3

We stayed in the school where we had stayed last year. The accommodations were fine, with the added feature this year of a wireless internet connection. Having internet access was helpful. I recently was appointed to the editorial board of the ASOR journal Near Eastern Archaeology and there was a flurry of editorial emails that I could now conveniently deal with.

The staff using the wireless internet at the school

The school is decorated with lots of pious Islamic slogans painted on the exterior walls and on large posters inside. One of the slogans reads: “Respecting appointments and being precise about them are an Islamic moral quality with which it is necessary to adorn ourselves continually.” Regrettably, our Saudi colleagues did not take that to heart as much as they could have.

The slogan about respecting time

Us Westerners milling around the vehicles waiting for the Saudis to show up

Another slogan placed above the dinner table reads: “Looking at what is forbidden causes anxieties, grief and injuries in the heart. Happy is he who lowers his gaze and fears his lord”. The often raunchy dinner conversations indicate how oblivious to that sentiment some of the staff were.

The slogan about lowering one’s gaze

A third slogan reads: “It is not possible for someone to keep in his hands more than two out of three balls: health, money and peace of mind”.

The slogan about health, money and peace of mind

Unfortunately life at the school was marred by a robbery. David Graf, the project director, had gotten several thousand dollars in cash from the bank on the Tuesday of the last week with which to pay the workmen on Thursday, only to have the money stolen from his room on Wednesday. Another staff member also had a large amount of cash stolen. It looked pretty clearly to be a inside job when most of us would have been working at the site, but the police investigation did not come up with any definite suspects who will have to sacrifice either health or peace of mind.