We are back in Al-Baleed for a short season. We arrived Dec 10-17, 2015 and are leaving today, Jan 15, 2016. We have switched to a December season for the next few years since Ramadan is moving into May and therefore by the time we get out of school and get to Oman we wouldn't be able to work during the day.
This season we brought 3 students from the University of Little Rock: Charlotte Dollar, Myriah Harrison, & Laura Whitehead.
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| Myriah, Charlotte, & Laura |
Senior Staff of Dr. Krista Lewis, Kristy Miller, & Brian Miller were back again. New editions this year of Senior staff were Paleoethnobotonist Dr. Liz Horton and & Vanessa Bunton who has been on past digs with Krista.
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| Liz looking smug. |
A lot had to get done in a short time because another vital member joined the crew this season, mapping specialist Bill Isenberger.
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| Bill using a drone to map the site. |
Bill originally mapped the site in 2012 but was back this season to remap the site so that we can expand out of our current dig in the near future. Bill also took time to map Wadi Doka where frankincense trees are being preserved and helped to grow.
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| Brian at Wadi Doka with a Frankincense tree. |
The students & staff only opened 1 new square this season but continued excavations on many other areas in order to find the walls and the basic structure of the building for mapping purposes. We also managed to find a few really, really cool artifacts but I'll get to that in a minute.
First off, a refresher of the map:
The weird pink & purple areas are everything that was touched this season: O, P, Q, R, W, & X were the main focus but time was also spent in V, Y, CC & DD. There are some really cool shots of the mapping that Bill did but those are still being processed. Hopefully, I will remember to add them later.
This year we found a cute small pot, a bone flute, and these adorable little guys... we think they are part of a musical instrument...
We were here for both Christmas and New Year's Eve. There were many different trees, gingerbread houses, special treats of food, & holiday displays all over Salalah. If you follow Brian on Facebook you probably saw some of them.
Santa did manage to find us here, but I made everyone make or acquire their own stockings & we did a small gift exchange on Christmas morning.
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| We bought garland & holiday lights at the Lulu. |
We went to the beach on Christmas day and then had Chinese food for dinner, it was a fun day and a pretty great way to spend Christmas--even the grinches among us had a good time. ;)
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| Dinner at the Chinese Cascade on Dec 25th. |
New Years was celebrated by us and our friend Ganem. We had a big meal, played some games and mostly stayed awake until midnight.
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| Kristy bedecked in NYE streamers. |
We also managed to squeeze in a couple of field trips in our short stay. As I said we went to the beach on Xmas day, which was in Mirbat. The following week we went to Shisr & the Rub al Khali (the Great Empty Quarter desert).
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| I THINK that's Krista on top & Liz on the way up. |
The last weekend we went to Mugsal where the blow holes are and to the secret beach just beyond that. The blow holes were weirdly quiet since the sea is calm this time of year & the beaches were weirdly popular since the sea is calm this time of year. There were 30 people on OUR favorite beach but luckily they left after about 30 min.
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| At Mugsal--all is quiet. |
Every year students love seeing the camels wandering around but this year Myriah was a teeny bit obsessed. ;) One of the highlights of the trip was on the way home from the secret beach we saw a small family of camel herders. We pulled over and they let Myriah love & kiss & snuggle with baby camels--she was ecstatic.
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| If you zoom in you can see Myriah next to the guy in the white shirt--she's squeezing a baby camel. |
Sorry to only produce one blog this season but it just flew by. Four weeks came & went in the blink of an eye.
We should be back next year in December, inshallah.
