5ml Bottle
 
Collected During the First Week of the Israel–Palestinian War, October 2023
Specimen from Remote Dune, Southern Jordan
 
Wadi Rum doesn’t ask for silence — it imposes it.
 
In January of 2024, as war tensions brewed across borders and most travelers had vanished from the region, we entered the desert. Just stillness, wind, and ancient sandstone sleeping under the sun. This sand was gathered from a remote dune reached on foot — far from any camp, in an expanse that felt as old as language.
 
The sample is pure aeolian sand — wind-blown, fine-grained, rust-colored — shaped over millennia by temperature, erosion, and movement. The same sands that once buried Nabataean trade routes and Roman ambition.
 
We paid our dues in coin, but also through cultural exchange: music by the fire with Bedouin hosts, support of local vendors, and stories shared beneath Orion. This 5ml  bottle holds not just earth — but moment, myth, and context.
 
It includes a short field story — a written reflection on the night sky, the silence of conflict zones and perspectives from locals, as well as the enduring grace of hospitality in the harshest of terrains.
 
Collected with respect. No mass removal. No shortcuts.