Friday (Saudi Sunday) 3/2/10

I was sure up for a camp out in the desert after a ride out to some wadis (dry creek beds) about 2 hours NW of Aramco to see some Spring flowers. It's an annual trek, but as we got closer to our first stop (some ruins) it was decided to cancel the camp out due to the heavy dust storm that only became worse as the day wore on. When we left the Aramco compound at about 7:45 AM the weather was beautiful. We were really looking to a great night on the desert with stars galore.

We were able to get access to a couple of archaeological sites from around the Second Century. There were loads of pottery shards scattered all over the place. In fact, one of the sites was a pottery manufacturing and kiln area, so there were layers of shards in the cut faces in the dig. And buried along with the shards were bones from goats, camels, and other domesticated animals. Very fascinating. The Saudis had exposed the sites and then covered them up, partly to preserve the sites from looters, but also, because there is no tourist industry to attract people to sites like this. What a shame. The little settlement where the sites were located was a very poor community. Dusty, a small store, a car repair shop, and a few other businesses. Several years ago they found a beautiful gold burial mask on a woman from the period in the area next to the kiln excavation. It is now on display at the national museum.

From those sites we took a short trip out into the desert to find a special tree/bush that is important to Islam. You see old Muslim men with a small stick in the mouth. Apparently, it is used as a tooth and gum brush by the Bedouin. It is actually the root, so we had to expose several roots for sample. I managed to cut a small piece to try it and saved another pencil sized piece to share with Omer and Anas. Saw an old man selling the sticks on the sidewalk in Kobar this evening. It is not indigenous to this part of the Arabian Peninsula, but there is a small group of the trees near where we were, so we just had to find the grove in the middle of a dust storm. Thanks for GPS readings.