Two Days at Safut

I’ve spent the last two days at my dissertation site of Safut. Yesterday Don Wimmer, the original director, gave me a 4.5 hour tour of the site. It was an amazing learning experience, we covered all of the areas on the tell, walked down to the spring, and then up through the Wadi Suweileh. One thing that amazed me was the massive development in the area. So many more houses than any other pictures I have seen. This tour was the best learning experience possible, a great way to prepare to jump into the material. However today I was planning on mapping the site using the GPS and nothing got done. I now know the process of getting the system set up, it took about 20 minutes and we got within 20 cm. But, there were no points to localize to. We tried to get a hold of the local surveyor who had recently put a new benchmark into the site, but he wasn’t answering his cell phone and wasn’t in his office. So Don will have to find one of his surveyor’s and get the info.