During my time as an undergraduate, I enrolled in a course called “Technology in Prehistoric Periods.” At 19, the word “technology” still made me think of computers, but I signed up out of curiosity. Prof. Maysoon Al-Nahar introduced us to the fascinating world of stone tool technology using Neolithic assemblages from Tell Abu Suwwan (ASW) (Fig. 1). That course gave me my first encounter with a real prehistoric stone tool—a moment I still remember vividly. 

Years later, after I completed my master’s research, which focused on the African Middle Stone Age (c. 300,000–30,000 years ago), Prof. Al-Nahar invited me back to the University of Jordan to assist with her ongoing analysis of ASW (Fig. 2). Alongside other students, I helped sort and study thousands of stone artifacts. Among them, one type of flake caught my attention: It showed removals from its ventral surface, a practice not common at most prehistoric sites. These “cores-on-flakes” (COFs) were flakes originally removed from a core for everyday use—but here they were reused as cores themselves, creating more flakes (Fig. 3). It reminded me of repurposing a cookie tin to store needles and thread—but happening thousands of years ago. I decided to investigate this phenomenon further. I applied to the American Center of Research for funding in 2023 and was initially rejected, but I successfully received support in 2025 for my project “Stone Tool Optimization and Recycling Mechanisms in Tell Abu Suwwan (STORM).”

For the STORM project I examined 500 artifacts and worked in collaboration with Ruaa Al-Athamneh, a master of arts student, resulting in a combined dataset of 1,232 artifacts. Research took place at the University of Jordan, using both technological and typological approaches. Our main question was whether these cores-on-flakes represent deliberate recycling or a standard reduction strategy at ASW—a site located just meters from abundant raw material. Based on previous studies, one might not expect recycling at a site with such readily available stone, which made the investigation particularly intriguing.

Our analysis revealed that COFs were mostly created from reduction “waste” rather than formal cores. Size did not matter much. These flakes were selected to produce small, functional flakes—rarely more than two removals per flake. The resulting flakes were tiny, often less than 2 cm long, with minimal shaping or preparation. It seems the people at ASW were focused on quickly producing small cutting tools from existing materials rather than investing much time and effort.

The results show early humans deliberately recycling their stone tools. Even in a landscape where raw material was abundant, the knappers at ASW found ways to make the most of what they already had. Rather than creating a wasteful surplus, they turned old flakes into new tools—demonstrating ingenuity, adaptability, and resourcefulness. In other words, the COFs reflect a deliberate, flexible strategy for meeting everyday needs.

The outcomes of the STORM project are being prepared for submission to a peer-reviewed journal. Finally, I would like to sincerely thank the American Center of Research for funding this project, which made it possible to carry out the research and investigate these aspects of Neolithic life at Tell Abu Suwwan.

Osama Samawi is the 2025–2026 S. Thomas Parker Memorial Fund Fellow. He is a PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and the Evolution of Human Behavior (ICArEHB) at the University of Algarve, Portugal, where he researches the Middle and Later Stone Age in Mozambique. His work focuses on experimental knapping, lithic techno-economics, and the human-environment nexus during the Middle Stone Age. He is also engaged in research projects on the Middle Stone Age in Jordan, South Africa, and Oman.

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Prior to this field school, my only archaeological experience and exposure came from classes I had taken at the University of Alberta, volunteer work I had done with one of my professors, and travels I had taken with my family. Never once had I stepped foot on a site intending to contribute to its archaeological knowledge—until now. After spending three weeks at the Humayma Archaeological Field School in Jordan under the supervision of Prof. Craig A. Harvey, I have become better equipped to understand the nuanced processes and work involved in modern archaeology. This is especially true for instances in which archaeological surveying unexpectedly uncovers discoveries which require adjustments to the work. Through my time spent at the American Center of Research (ACOR) and at the archaeological site of Humayma, I developed valuable skills in photography, photogrammetry, and writing site reports. These “hard” skills were complemented by the “soft” skills I also cultivated during my time in Jordan. These included establishing positive relationships with the Bedouin people and the Jordanian Department of Antiquities to help protect the site of al-Humayma against looting. All in all, my time spent under the Jordanian sun was both mentally and physically stimulating, and I could not have asked for a better first experience at an archaeological field school.

Before going into the field, I spent a week at ACOR, examining materials found at al-Humayma from previous seasons, which contributed tremendously to my ability to both understand the site and work meaningfully at it. From late Nabataean fine ware to African red slip, and from stone cooking ware to terracotta pipes, it was through these materials and lectures (both formal and informal) that I gained a greater understanding of the site’s history and the artifacts found there. I am a very hands-on person, and I tend to retain information much better when I can see, hold, and feel in real time what it is I am learning about. If it were not for the lessons on these materials, I would not have had the ability to examine objects at al-Humayma so easily and discern a cup base from a perfume bottle rim—a skill I had no idea I could hone in just two weeks!

My fond experiences examining the material artifacts also extended to photography and photogrammetry. As Matthew Vincent, project director at ACOR, would often say, “The future of archaeology is in 3D modules.” Through him, I learned about real-time kinematic positioning (RTK), how to use it in the field to improve the accuracy of data from global navigation satellite systems used in surveys, and the important role it plays in creating 3D models of a site. With the field school’s MA student, Josh Feland, I learned about RealityScan and how to do photogrammetry, from small artifacts to large complexes. I was able to later apply these skills in the field, helping Sophie Tews, one of the field school’s supervisors, with the RTK positioning of a monumental tomb structure and an unknown “latrine” structure, which was used to help with photogrammetry of those features. It is incredible to see just how technology has improved our ability to do archaeological work, both in surveying and excavations. These are skills I will continue to refine and use. As I reflect on my three weeks in Jordan, I see that my biggest accomplishments, without a doubt, are developing my photographic techniques, learning how to use software for 3D scanning and modelling, and honing my ability to assess a site and take in-depth notes. Although I had some prior experience with photography and 3D scanning, I was able to learn more about the techniques involved.

Before the field school, I would not have known the importance of shooting photos in aperture mode for photogrammetry or the proper way to take site photographs to use as references for future surveying and excavation. As well, I found that, by the end of the last week, I was able to create in-depth notes which accurately identified and captured key features and aspects of the sites and complexes I worked on. As I continue my education and work as a field archaeologist in CRM, I see these skills becoming invaluable for helping determine whether an area is an archaeological site and quickly assessing specific elements of said site, whether it was a religious complex, a burial feature, or simply a midden/garbage dumping ground. Most especially, my ability to do all of this on my own with little to no supervision — to have my director feel confident in my ability to be unsupervised and produce good work — has been the most profound accomplishment for me. This field school has set me up for success for a future in archaeology by providing me invaluable experience working hands-on with materials, applying theory from class and volunteer work in a practical way, and, most especially, helping confirm that archaeology, with a specialization in heritage management, is the career I see myself pursuing wholeheartedly

Rachel Carroll, Jennifer C. Groot Memorial Fellow (2025-2026), is a fourth-year Combined Honors Undergraduate student at the University of Alberta who is also completing academic certificates in Archaeology and International Learning. Her focus throughout her degree has been on researching how people form and reinforce identities through cultural practices during turbulent and transitional periods.

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I had the privilege of staying at the American Center of Research during the months of May, June, and July of 2025 and conducting research on depictions of Midian/Madyan in the Hebrew Bible and the Qur’an. Historically, Midian/Madyan is believed to have been located in the northwestern Arabian Peninsula, with its northernmost boundaries around Jordan’s Gulf of Aqaba and its capital in Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk region. In the Hebrew Bible, Midian represents the place where the Prophet Moses is said to have escaped and settled, as well as where the Israelites lived between their exodus from Egypt and arrival in Canaan. The Hebrew Bible is so rich with allusions to God and Midian that since the nineteenth century, a school of biblicists have argued that the Israelites first adopted their conception of their deity from a people who lived there, in what has become known as the Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis. As the idea is based on a scholarly “hunch” rather than a substantial body of evidence, it remains a hypothesis. The biblical allusions are rich, but the archaeological record on Midian has only recently emerged and has yet to reveal anything about the land’s religious landscape (Fig. 1). Naturally, any relevant literature from the Semitic milieu of late antiquity comes as a welcome source of insights. 

Here we come to the Qur’an. Although certainly beyond the secular paradigm of the Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis, the Qur’an lends weight to the idea that in Madyan there was a precedent for Israelite religious thought. While the Qur’an shares with the Hebrew Bible the account of the Prophet Moses meeting his father-in-law in Madyan, it also features a unique account of a Prophet Shu’aib, who is portrayed as having preached there centuries before the Prophet Moses or the Israelites arrived. Whereas the Hebrew Bible calls the Prophet Moses’s father-in-law “the Priest of Midian” without saying anything about this priest’s religion, the Qur’an conveys a continuity of beliefs between him and his regional predecessor, the Prophet Shu’aib. Although the Qur’anic style generally lends to thematic continuity between prophets, it would appear that the Qur’an is specifically highlighting Madyan’s regional religious significance; not only does Madyan account for one of the few place names in the scripture, but it is also the only land in which the stories of both an “Arabian” and a “biblical” prophet—Shu’aib and Moses, respectively—take place. This significance might not have been lost on the Qur’an’s 7th-century audience in the neighboring Hejaz, for whom Madyan was a cultural-spatial bridge between them and Palestine. One example of how the Qur’an impresses religious significance upon Madyan is how it insists on its location for Mount Sinai. The Qur’an insisted on a Midian location despite the belief current since the 4th century that this mountain was located in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, an association cemented by Justinian I’s construction of the St. Katherine’s Monastery there. Mount Sinai’s location is just one case in which the Qur’an subtly weighs in on important debates among biblicists. 

I am honored to have resided and conducted research at ACOR (Fig. 2). It is a place of gathering for archaeologists and enthusiasts of the region’s history. The library has for decades facilitated research that draws from diverse primary and secondary sources, putting archaeological findings in conversation with religious scriptures and their commentaries. Most importantly, ACOR is the home of a cohort of researchers and scholars from a range of disciplines, all converging on their interest in the region. I am honored to be the first ACOR fellow since 2002 to be awarded a grant focused on Qur’anic research and hope to see more projects like it in the future. I would like to extend my warmest gratitude to my fellowship grantors, Dr. Pierre and the late Dr. Patricia Bikai, for their generous patronage of my research, as well as ACOR’s staff for facilitating such a comfortable, welcoming stay. 

Kareem Rosshandler was the 2025–2026 recipient of the Pierre and Patricia Bikai Fellowship. He is a PhD student at Emory University in the fields of Islamic studies and comparative religions. Prior to resuming his academic career, he served as a researcher and project manager at the West Asia-North Africa Institute in Amman, Jordan. His focus areas included human security, international trade, and refugee inclusion. He received his BA from the George Washington University and his MA in Middle Eastern studies from the University of Chicago.

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When it comes to understanding religion in Iron Age Jordan (ca. 1200–550 BCE), terracotta figurines offer one of our most abundant and expressive forms of archaeological evidence. These three-dimensional artistic objects fit readily into one hand (typically 10–15 cm), apparently crafted for personal use. At the same time, they appear across a range of social settings, from the household, to tombs, to temples and other public settings of formal worship. 

As in periods before and after the Iron Age, figurines take the form of animals (most often horses and bulls but sometimes others), human beings (female and male), and inanimate objects (for example, furniture). While female figurines from the southern Levant have dominated scholarly attention for decades now, much less consideration has gone to their proportionally less frequent male counterparts. For Iron Age Jordan, male figurines are well attested, numbering at least 65 published examples.

The male figurines have much to tell us about the religious beliefs and practices of people living during the Iron Age. Yet basic questions remain debated: What do these figurines represent? How did people use them in ritual? How can the male figurines help us understand relationships between household religion and other socioreligious realms in Iron Age Jordan? 

With these questions in view, I focused the research of my ACOR-CAORC Postdoctoral Fellowship for spring 2025 on male figurines from Iron Age Jordan. I have sought to interpret the male figurines based on their archaeological contexts, physical features, and comparative artistic evidence. What I found was a wide variety among the male figurines in terms of their form and subject matter, and their apparent ritual functions, along with clear indicators of the impact of the region’s political kingdoms on household religion during Iron Age II (ca. 950–550 BCE). Here are some preliminary insights with illustrating examples. 

Gods and Men: The Household and the Palace

Nearly half the identifiable male figurines survive only as head fragments (sometimes including the upper torso). These are variously hand-modeled or pressed from a mold. Male figurines lacking headgear and constructed in a variety of styles likely represent human subjects, perhaps as images of venerated human ancestors or as votive objects representing living human worshipers or embodying concerns of daily life.^[1]  

A rare instance of a fully preserved male figurine is the “traveler” from Tall as-Sa‘idiyyah in the Jordan Valley (Fig. 1). This pillar-style figurine depicts a bearded male wearing a thick headband or turban, a long-sleeved mantle, and a backpack thrown over his left shoulder, containing a large round object that James Pritchard interprets as a pilgrim flask (Pritchard 1968). This figurine’s domestic find context (dated to the mid-8^th century BCE) and the accompanying specialized objects are consistent with its place in household worship, the male figurine likely serving as a votive representing a senior male of the household (cf. Pritchard 1968, 26, 29). 

In contrast to that depiction of full clothing, six unfortunately headless figurines from several sites in Jordan portray nude males (Daviau 2022, 261, n. 7). An artistic portrayal placing nude male figures into a broader visual context is a relief frieze decorating a ceramic krater from Iron II Tall Nimrin in the east Jordan Valley (Flanagan et al. 1992). It shows a procession of nude males taking part in a fertility ritual (Dornemann 1995). Based on this comparison, nude male figurines might have served in communal or household rituals concerned with male fertility. At the same time, a stone statue of a nude male figure at roughly contemporary Khirbat al-Mudayna, in the Wadi Thamad in northern Moab, offers a presumably honorific portrayal of either an elite individual (Daviau 2022, 261) or possibly a deity. Nudity occurs as a regular motif in artistic depictions of female deities in the Levant and broader West Asia (Bloch-Smith 2014; Darby 2014, 330–338, 398–406). Given the ethnographic and comparative literary evidence for multiple representations and functions, even for the same figurine (Moorey 2003), the nude males might have portrayed a deity or supernatural being while also embodying a concern for male reproduction addressed in ritual.

A high deity is more clearly in view among figurine head fragments from Amman and locations affiliated with other material culture. Examples from outside a “palace” building at the Amman Citadel (Zayadine et al. 1989, 362), from Tall Jawa 10.5 km south of Amman (Daviau and Dion 1994), and from farther south at Tall Jalul (Younker et al. 1996) wear a form of the atef crown deriving ultimately from Egyptian tradition and appearing in Iron II stone statuary as the emblem of the leading god of the Ammonite kingdom (Abou-Assaf 1980; Daviau and Dion 1994; Burnett 2016; 2024). The Tall Jawa example’s discovery inside a domestic building, along with other cultic objects (Daviau 2003, 136–137), indicates this figurine’s function as a terracotta image of the Ammonite chief deity, perhaps a replica of larger stone statues at the capital, within domestic ritual at this outlying location. The domestic use context for this example and likely the one from Tall Jalul (Daviau 2001, 201) shows that the iconographic system supporting the Ammonite monarchy was incorporated into that of the family-based realm of domestic worship. 

Messengers and Mediating Figures: Houses, Tombs, and Public Worship Places

More than a dozen other male figurine heads wear various forms of a conic or pointed cap resembling the headgear of horse and rider figurines so well attested for the Amman Citadel and nearby sites and from the Jordan Valley (Fig. 2). The fully preserved horse-and-riders tend to bear decoration of black and white painted lines and other designs on their headgear and clothing. The uniform thus portrayed, along with the headgear’s resemblance to a pointed helmet (variously depicted for warriors in multiple ancient Near Eastern battle scenes; Dornemann 1983, 137–138), suggests a military association for these figures, although they tend to appear without weapons or other military equipment. A messenger figure might thus be the implication, especially considering the quality of swiftness the horse represents. In any case, most of the population would not have had horses, and these widely attested figurines likely reflect royal military imagery and its impact on household and family religion.  

The two-headed horse carrying a rider excavated at Tall Damiyya in the Jordan Valley (Petit and Kafafi 2016) suggests a depiction of supernatural beings. The discovery of these hybrid depictions (combining zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figures) in a worship sanctuary, amid fragments of a cult stand (Petit and Kafafi 2016), and in tombs (Harding 1945; 1950) would be consistent with imagery of divine messengers mediating between higher deities and their living and deceased human worshipers. Like the atef-crowned figurines, the horse-and-riders show the institution of the monarchy to have shaped conceptions of divine-human relationships in household, mortuary, and public religious life, as well as the connections among these societal realms on the Ammonite plateau and the Jordan Valley during Iron Age II. 

Another type of mediating figure appears in male figurines attached to the entrances of ceramic miniature shrines, thus marking and guarding spatial boundaries. The best-preserved example was excavated in the Iron II temple at Khirbat Ataruz, overlooking the Dead Sea (Ji 2012, pl. 47). It features two male figurines flanking the shrine’s entrance, each with a bare upper body and holding a small animal. These guardian figures’ positioning at the threshold indicates their liminal status, mediating the boundary between divine and human, sacred and profane. 

Conclusions: Variety and Range among the Male Figurines

While questions remain, the array of male figurines yields many insights into the religion of Iron Age Jordan. Human beings and their life concerns, deities, and mediating supernatural beings find representation, with some figurines perhaps combining more than one referent. In their ritual functions, the male figurines serve as propitiatory votives, stand-ins for human worshipers, and miniature divine images, and serve other attention-focusing roles, for example, in mediating divine-human interaction. Male figurines reflect personal and family concerns such as reproduction, perpetuation of the household lineage, and care for the deceased. Other examples, such as the atef-crowned heads and horse-and-rider figurines, signal the monarchy’s relevance to the household’s general wellbeing. Continuing research and new archaeological discoveries hold promise for refining these preliminary results. What is clear is that these well-attested artistic objects embody a variety of representations, cultic functions, and socioreligious circles.

References

Abou-Assaf, A. 1980. “Untersuchungen zur ammonitischen Rundbildkunst.” Ugarit-Forschungen 12: 7–102.

Burnett, J. S. 2016. “Egyptianizing Elements in Ammonite Stone Statuary: The Atef Crown and Lotus.” In R. A. von Stucky, O. Kaelin, and H.-P. Mathys (eds.), 9 ICAANE: Proceedings of the 9th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (June 9–13, 2014, University of Basel). Volume 1: Traveling Images, 57–71. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Burnett, J. S. 2024. The Amman Theater Statue in Its Iron Age Contexts, with contributions by R. Gharib and D. F. Parker. AASOR 75. Alexandria, VA: American Society of Overseas Research.

Bloch-Smith, E. 2014. “Acculturating Gender Roles: Goddess Images as Conveyors of Culture in Ancient Israel.” In I. J. de Hulster and J. M. LeMon (eds.), Image, Text, Exegesis: Iconographic Interpretation and the Hebrew Bible, 1–18. The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 588. New York: Bloomsbury.

Darby, E. 2014. Interpreting Judean Pillar Figurines: Gender and Empire in Judean Apotropaic Ritual. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 69. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

Daviau, P. M. M. 2001. “Family Religion: Evidence for the Paraphernalia of the Domestic Cult.” P. M. M. Daviau, J. W. Wevers, and M. Weigl (eds.), The World of the Aramaeans II: Studies in History and Archaeology in Honour of Paul-Eugѐne Dion, 199–229. JSOTSup 325. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Daviau, P. M. M. 2003. Excavations at Tall Jawa, Jordan. Volume 1: The Iron Age Town. CHANE 11. Leiden: Brill. 

Daviau, P. M. M. 2022. “Cultural Multiplicity in Northern Mo’āb: Figurines and Statues from Khirbat al-Mudaynah on the Wādī ath-Thamad.” Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan 14: 251–265.

Daviau, P. M. M., and P. E. Dion. 1994. “El, the God of the Ammonites? The Atef-Crowned Head from Tell Jawa, Jordan.” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 110: 158–167.

Dornemann, R. H. 1983. The Archaeology of the Transjordan in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Milwaukee: Milwaukee Public Museum.

Dornemann, R. H. 1995. “Preliminary Thoughts on the Tall Nimrin Krater.” Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan 5: 621–628.

Flanagan, J. W., D. W. McCreery, and K. N. Yassine. 1992. “Preliminary Report of the 1990 Excavation at Tell Nimrin.” Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 36: 89–111, pls. 1–3. 

Harding, G. L. 1945. “Two Iron-Age Tombs, Amman.” Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine 11: 64–74.

Harding, G. L. 1950. “An Iron-Age Tomb at Meqabelein.” Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine 14: 44–48.

Ji, C.-H. 2012. “The Early Iron Age II Temple at Hirbet ’Aṭārūs and Its Architecture and Selected Cultic Objects.” In J. Kamlah (ed.), Temple Building and Temple Cult: Architecture and Cultic Paraphernalia of Temples in the Levant (2.-1. Mill. B.C.E.), 203–222, pls. 46–49. Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 41. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Moorey, P. R. S. 2003. Idols of the People: Miniature Images of Clay in the Ancient Near East. The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 2001. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Petit, L., and Z. Kafafi. 2016. “Beyond the River Jordan: A Late Iron Age Sanctuary at Tell Damiyah.” Near Eastern Archaeology 79(1): 18–26.

Pritchard, J. B. 1968. “An Eighth Century Traveller.” Expedition 10(2): 26–29. 

Tuttle, Christopher A. 2009. “The Nabataean Coroplastic Arts: A Synthetic Approach for Studying Terracotta Figurines, Plaques, Vessels, and Other Clay Objects.” Unpublished PhD dissertation, Brown University. 

Younker, R. W., L. T. Geraty, L. G. Herr, Ø. LaBianca, and D. Clark. 1996. “Preliminary Report of the 1994 Season of the Madaba Plains Project: Regional Survey, Tall al-‘Umayri, and Tall Jalul Excavations (June 15 to July 20, 1994).” Andrews University Seminary Studies 34(1): 65–92.

Zayadine, F., J.-B. Humbert, and M. Najjar. 1989. “The 1988 Excavations of the Citadel of Amman, Lower Terrace, Area A.” Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 33: 357–363.

^[1] See the list of possible representation and uses of figurines Christopher Tuttle has developed, building on the model of Peter Ucko and Mary Voigt (Tuttle 2009: 246). 

Joel Burnett is a professor of religion (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament studies) at Baylor University. His research centers around the history and religion of Iron Age Israel and Transjordan. His most recent publications include “The Persistence of El in Iron Age Israel and Ammon” (pp. 297–330 in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of P. Kyle McCarter Jr. ANEM 27, ed. C.A. Rollston, S. Garfein, and N. H. Walls. Atlanta: SBL, 2022), “Geochemical Characterization of Jordanian Basalts Using Portable X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry and Sourcing of the Amman Theater Statue” (coauthored with Carolyn D. Dillian, Aktham Oweidi, and Romel Gharib, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 46 [2022]: 103720), and The Amman Theater Statue in Its Iron Age Contexts (with contributions by Romel Gharib and Don F. Parker. Annual of ASOR 75. Boston: ASOR 2024).

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As an intern with the American Center of Research (ACOR) from September to October 2024, I had the opportunity to contribute to the National Cultural Heritage Property Database of The Kingdom of Jordan, an initiative to preserve Jordan’s cultural heritage. Known less formally as the National Inventory Project, it centers around creating a comprehensive digital record of Jordan’s movable cultural artifacts, aiming to protect these items from illicit trafficking and the loss of heritage and narrative. Through detailed cataloging and advanced software, the National Inventory Project has become an essential tool in heritage preservation, aligning with international standards set by UNESCO, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) Red Lists of Cultural Objects at Risk, and the Hague Convention.

As part of my role, I created a report examining the National Inventory’s fundamental purpose in preserving Jordan’s cultural identity, heritage, and historical narratives for the future. I had the unique opportunity to delve into the theoretical aspects of heritage preservation as part of the National Inventory Project. My primary responsibility was to draft a report analyzing how this inventory functions as a vital tool for preserving Jordan’s cultural heritage. Rather than focusing solely on the technicalities of cataloging, my work centered on examining the broader theoretical and legal frameworks that underlie this preservation effort. I also explored how the inventory’s work combats the illegal trade of cultural assets by establishing clear ownership and provenance records, hindering traffickers from exploiting these valuable resources.

The most fascinating aspect of this project was learning about the international legal conventions that highlight the importance of national inventories. I enjoyed exploring how ACOR’s approach aligns with UNESCO guidelines and the ICOM Red Lists to create a secure, accessible, and detailed database. This knowledge enhanced my understanding of how global networks and local efforts converge to support heritage preservation. I thoroughly enjoyed learning how technology can play a pivotal role in preserving cultural heritage. Axiell’s software, for instance, allowed us to document and manage artifacts in both Arabic and English, making the inventory accessible to a broader audience. This multilingual approach is critical to ensuring that local communities are engaged in the preservation process, which fosters a sense of shared ownership and pride in Jordan’s cultural legacy.

I was particularly fascinated by ACOR’s innovative approach to organizing artifacts within the National Inventory. Their meticulous cataloging system preserves the details and stories behind each item. It can serve as a template model for other countries, especially those in post-conflict neighboring regions or areas at risk of future conflict. This inventory framework ensures that cultural heritage can be safeguarded systematically, by means of a resilient digital archive that protects a nation’s identity amid instability.

Lastly, I was interested in learning how digital heritage preservation is becoming the next crucial step in archaeology and cultural heritage. Digitizing artifacts not only preserves their tangible heritage but also captures the intangible aspects of identity and memory that can be carried on to the next generations. By transforming physical heritage into a digital format, institutions like ACOR ensure that cultural narratives and historical connections endure, even as physical objects face threats from time, conflict, or environmental factors.

This internship gave me valuable insights into digital heritage preservation. It also prepared me with practical experience in managing inventories and documenting culture. This participation reinforced my belief that heritage preservation can strengthen national identity and foster cross-cultural understanding. Working with ACOR on this critical project was an educational and fulfilling experience. I am proud to have participated in this research opportunity to help preserve Jordan’s cultural heritage.

Roma Aatifi, originally from Kabul, Afghanistan, is pursuing a master’s degree in sustainable cultural heritage at the American University of Rome. Her thesis focuses on the preservation and reconstruction of cultural heritage in Afghanistan. Following research conducted with the ACOR-coordinated project at Karak, she chose to seek an internship at ACOR because she could see parallels between the challenges Jordan experiences regarding cultural heritage and those faced in Afghanistan.

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I completed an internship at the American Center of Research over the course of two weeks during December, 2024. It was a great and very valuable experience, as I was able to work with archival documentation, as well delve briefly into cultural heritage databases. What I gained the most from this experience was learning various methods of archiving. My primary task involved organizing and rearranging a collection of old maps of Jordan, focusing on significant regions and archaeological sites. I sorted these maps by code and site or region name, verifying their placements through a database to ensure accuracy. Once these were organized in drawers, I entered them into a database, documenting details such as code numbers, the number of copies, and their locations. This process not only helped me refine my organizational skills but also deepened my understanding of Jordan’s topography and key historical sites.

Additionally, for a short time I worked with the National Cultural Heritage Property Database of The Kingdom of Jordan project. Through participating in the National Inventory Project, as it is also called, I learned about the use of databases such as Axiell and engaged in interesting discussions about Jordan’s history and culture. I also explored how pottery artifacts are meticulously catalogued, and I assisted in researching different types of databases and digital preservation methods used by other countries to preserve their cultural heritage. 

The most valuable aspects of this experience for me, however, were the insightful conversations I had with ACOR’s various staff members. Whether the staff were focused on photo archiving, database management, or library resource management, my discussions with them provided important insights into topics ranging from archaeology and history to their daily job duties, educational backgrounds, and advice on how to pursue a career in this field. Overall, it was a rewarding and unforgettable experience!

Zain Fanik is currently a senior at Georgetown University studying Culture and Politics and concentrating on cultural anthropology. She has taken a variety of courses on ethnography, history, cultural studies, literature, and museology. She is also pursuing a certificate in Arab regional studies, focusing on the inclusion outcomes of Palestinian Christians in the West Bank. She had the opportunity to intern with ACOR as a recipient of Georgetown’s Student Experience Fund, which supports research and internships for students. After earning her bachelor of science in foreign service, she plans to pursue a master’s degree in archaeology or heritage studies and aspires to build a career in this field, focusing on researching and preserving beautiful cultural heritage.

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For historians of the Middle East, medieval documents and manuscripts are integral resources to better understand the social and intellectual milieu of their objects of study. Islamic manuscript archives and repositories are often quite challenging to access; an even greater challenge is the ability to read and analyze the documents themselves. For the past eight years, and during my 2024 ACOR-NEH Fellowship, I have spent a significant amount of time pursuing documentary and textual research at the Center for Documents and Manuscripts (CDM) at the University of Jordan while finishing my book project, Blasphemy (Sabb al-Rasūl) as a Legal Category in Early and Medieval Islamic History. Located within several blocks of ACOR, the CDM contains more than 30,000 manuscripts from the Fatimid, Ayyubid, Mamluk, and Ottoman eras. In addition to preserving physical manuscripts, for the past thirty years the CDM has also pursued another important project: digitizing manuscript collections from across the Levant and North Africa. With the onset of the Arab Spring and Syrian civil war, and now with ongoing violence in Lebanon, many of these regional collections are either no longer accessible or entirely destroyed, making the CDM’s digitized collection all the more an indispensable resource for researchers. 

Colleagues in other fields often ask me how I read and analyze manuscripts and documentary records in order to deduce historically relevant information. How does one determine a manuscript’s date of creation, scribal history, and authorship? What codicological clues does one use, in terms of the document’s material construction, handwriting, and illumination in order to date a manuscript and determine whether it is authentic? I address these questions in a three-part series. In my first Insights essay, I addressed the material construction of Ottoman codices and how historians examine certain aspects of medieval book construction in order to date a manuscript. In my second, I examined how researchers use calligraphic script identification and manuscript illumination to deduce the age and geographic origins of a manuscript, with special focus on the Mamluk era. In both of the aforementioned essays, I focused on books as historical objects, which often contain a plethora of clues that allow us to pursue accurate dating. But what happens when one only has a fragment of a page or a documentary record that is not part of a book? Such a scenario is far more common, especially in eras predating the Mamluk Empire, such as the Ayyubid and Fatimid eras. In this third installment, I shall address how historians use handwriting, text format, and material construction of fragments to estimate the age of a manuscript, with special attention to the Ayyubid and Fatimid eras.

Dating Documents Based on Material Construction

An important clue when attempting to identify the era and region in which a document was produced is examining the material construction. In Figure 1, the first attribute that jumps out to a trained historian is the fact that the artifact consists of porous and fibrous cross-laid strips. This texture indicates that the artifact is not made from paper, but rather from papyrus. Papyrus strips are paper-like, self-adhering sheets made from the stalk of the papyrus plant, which is indigenous to Africa, including Egypt. Papyrus was used as a material upon which to write in a variety of local languages in Egypt from about 3000 BCE to the 10^th century CE. After Alexander the Great seized Egypt from the Achaemenid Empire in the 4^th century BCE, Greek emerged as the primary written language of government administration, literature, and private document production. It remained so during the Ptolemaic, Roman, and Byzantine eras and was only replaced with Arabic in the 7^th century, after the Arab conquest. We also know that after the 10^th century CE, paper become the predominant material for writing in North Africa (for more on this topic, see Khan 2006; Goldberg and Krakowski 2019). Hence, based on the fact that the document is written on papyrus and that it is written in Arabic, we can deduce that it was most likely produced between the 7^th and 10^th centuries in Egypt. It is also possible that the papyrus was produced in Egypt for export and the document was written elsewhere.

Dating Documents Based on Vocabulary and Format

The vocabulary used in a document can also provide clues to confirm usage and dating, especially if patterns exist across a specific genre. The document in Figure 2 is a Fatimid Islamic iqrār, or security agreement. In the Fatimid and Ayyubid eras, Islamic security agreements were written using a very specific battery of formulary in the same sequence and with specific word placement on the page, similar to a modern-day administrative form (for more on this document type see Müller 2008; Lufti 1983). 

In the aforementioned iqrār, we see that the first line constitutes the basmala, or invocation to seek blessings from God. The block of text then begins with the word ‘aqarra’ , followed by specific formulary identifying the litigants, the amount owed, and payment plan, followed by a promise to pay off said debt on the part of the debtor (binding debt clause). On the last line of block text, the date of the agreement is recorded in the bottom left corner, followed by two short lines in the bottom right corner identifying the witnesses (witness confirmation clause), albeit now faded or erased. We know from other social history sources that iqrār documents in this specific format were not produced until the Ayyubid era (Ackerman-Lieberman 2007; Thung 1996). Hence, moving back to Figure 1 above, we are now able to observe some additional clues in dating our text: 1) that the document begins with the basmala and the word ‘aqarra’, the identifying formulary for iqrār documents; and 2) that the document appears to have the date written by the scribe on the last line in the far left corner, albeit faded to the point of partial legibility, as Rajab AH 312, which converts to 924 CE. Bringing together all of the aforementioned evidence on document construction and document vocabulary, we can say that the facts suggest without internal contradiction that the document is an Ayyubid or early Fatimid iqrār record produced toward the beginning of the 10^th century CE. 

In the document in Figure 2, the text and lines are straight and somewhat compressed, with very little space in between each line. One also can observe several areas where erasure and possible re-drafting has been attempted, such as the witness confirmation section on the bottom right corner. On the back of the document is also another unrelated draft that appears to be writing practice of some sort. This is quite different from, for example, the document in Figure 3.

In this Fatimid-era document, the text is curvilinear. We also observe ample spacing with no visible erasures and no drafted documents on the back. We know from the patterns that we have observed in studying manuscript genres from the Ayyubid and Fatimid eras that texts intended for public presentation or for an audience with the caliph and his court were often written in curvilinear script with ample spacing and in specific calligraphic styles. Such is the case in this letter in Figure 3, which was meant to be read to the Fatimid caliph (for more on this topic, see Rustow 2020). Writing materials were expensive and hence needed to be used economically, so documents written for internal administrative purposes, such as court records, were often written in small and economically spaced script, with both sides of the paper used (with no necessary link between the record written on the recto and the record written on the verso) (for a detailed analysis of handwriting and text placement in this context, see Rustow 2019). Therefore, in this case, we can deduce that the document in Figure 2 was likely either a court record or a scribe’s draft not intended for public display or performative reading. 

Manuscript fragments and individual documentary records, not just books, can be decoded and analyzed for clues that tell us more about their content and the social environment in which they were constructed. Altogether, the material construction of a manuscript fragment, coupled with an awareness of the typical vocabulary, format, writing style, and spacing of specific genres, provide clues to the historian regarding the date and geographic origin of a medieval document or manuscript. Such fragments, when studied together with other primary sources, are enormously valuable resources for learning more about medieval societies. 

References

Ackerman-Lieberman, Phillip Isaac. 2007. “A Partnership Culture: Jewish Economic and Social Life Seen through the Legal Documents of the Cairo Geniza.” PhD dissertation. Princeton University.

Khan, Geoffrey. 2006. Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Goldberg, Jessica and Eve Krakowski. 2019. “Introduction: A Handbook for Documentary Geniza Research in the Twenty-First Century.” Jewish History 32: 115–130.

Lutfi, Huda. 1983. “A Study of Six Fourteenth Century Iqrārs From al-Quds Relating to Muslim Women.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 26(3): 246–294.  

Müller, Christian. 2008. “Acknowledgement.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, edited by Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson, < http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_0166 >. Leiden: Brill.  

Rustow, Marina. 2019. “Fatimid State Documents.” Jewish History 32(2/4): 221–277.

Rustow, Marina. 2020. The Lost Archive: Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Thung, Michael. 1996. “Written Obligations from the 2^nd/8^th to the 4^th/10^th Century.” Islamic Law and Society 3(1): 1–12. 

Sarah Islam’s research focuses on the social and intellectual history of Islamic criminal law, and on how relations between Muslims, Jews, and Christians in the medieval context affected the development of jurisprudence and legal institutional norms across all three communities, despite internal polemics often arguing otherwise. Her first book project, Blasphemy (Sabb al-Rasūl) as a Legal Category in Early and Medieval Islamic History, examines the evolution of blasphemy as a legal category among capital crimes in Islamic legal history. Her research has been supported by the Charlotte Newcombe Foundation, Social Science Research Council, Fulbright Program, and the American Center of Research, where she has been an ACOR-CAORC Predoctoral Fellow (2015 – 2016) and ACOR-CAORC Postdoctoral Fellow (2022 – 2023). Her academic work has been published by Sage, Brill, and Oxford University Presses.

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My name is Dima Nafez Amin Harb, and I am a cultural resources management and conservation graduate from the University of Jordan, the valedictorian of my major. Throughout my education, my professors would always recommend several organizations that could assist us with our study, and the American Center of Research was always at the top of that list, which is how I was first introduced to it. Consequently, I did much research and wrote many essays within the walls of ACOR’s library.

I was given the opportunity to be an intern at ACOR from August to October 2024, with tasks revolving around the library and helping the associate librarian, Samya Khalaf Kafafi.

One of the tasks that took the longest in my short stay was reorganizing the collection of rare books. This was an incredible experience, seeing and helping to classify some of the books that tell stories even by the outside of their covers, of how time and readers have treated them. I also believe I enjoyed it because my major focuses on conservation and restoring such materials, and seeing books that hold so much importance was an honor. We had to be careful regarding everything: handling the most crucial volumes, fixing some of the very loose spines so that they don’t become rubbed or lost, carefully maintaining the books, and moving them from one shelf to another while keeping intact everything within their covers, such as maps and even notes that had been left there by some of the first readers.

The kind librarian came up with the idea of displaying the book’s classification numbers in a way that did not require taping anything onto the books (which might damage the spine and covers) and would limit the abrasion that can occur when someone pulls a book from the shelf to see its title or number. The results were perfect, to say the least: the solution was to place a piece of paper with the classification number in the book so that it sticks out above the pages and covers. It took nearly two months to finish preparing the entire collection in this way, and the result was a mini private display of books that is not open to the public.

My second longest task was to check and organize the maps, which are also off limits to the public without permission. I had to be very careful and wear gloves while removing the huge sheets of maps in order to place them in the right spot. To make sure no edges of these large documents get damaged in the process, maps need to be handled in a specific manner.

Not only did I enjoy working with these materials, but the staff of the library are also incredibly sweet and helpful—they are always so nice and pleasant and have amazing patience while teaching new interns or simply answering inquiries, especially the kind associate librarian, Samya, who gives life to the library.

I am very grateful to have been given this opportunity. I have learned a lot, ranging from social skills to books and understanding their secrets, and far more. It was a fruitful three months’ experience, and I hope my short stay has helped in the never-ending tasks of the library.

Thank you kindly.

Dima Nafez Amin Harb is a recent graduate from the University of Jordan who was valedictorian of her major (cultural resources management and conservation). Ambitious and wishing to continue her education further, she has participated in such events as Working for the Future of Our Past workshops held by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Germany, Egypt, and Germany, as well as the May 2023 ICOMOS workshop. Fluent in English and Arabic, Dima is now learning German. She is also a published artist.

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From August 1 to September 12, 2024, I had the fortunate opportunity to undertake an internship at the American Center of Research (ACOR) in Amman, Jordan. I worked with the National Cultural Heritage Property Database of The Kingdom of Jordan project, known informally as the National Inventory. While currently training to be a conservator, I have an educational background in archaeology, art history, and cultural heritage protection. The internship at ACOR provided me with a unique multidisciplinary experience in which I could blend and apply my interests in a practical manner.

The National Cultural Heritage Property Database of the Kingdom of Jordan project utilizes Axiell software as the basis for a centralized database of Jordan’s moveable cultural heritage. Axiell furthermore provides a digital repository that ensures records are retained in case a natural disaster or other such crisis impacts Jordan’s collections. My task was to incorporate conservation knowledge into the database and to assist with site assessments and recommendations.

During the course of the internship, the project team and I visited a number of museums and storehouses to conduct on-site assessments of their respective collections. Visits included excursions to As-Salt, Zarqa, Jerash, and Irbid. The project team would correlate collection survey data with physical locations. I would assess the general condition of artifacts and their physical settings. Through this, I learned about past conservation practices in museums and the unique challenges facing collections contemporarily (e.g., rising temperatures). Recommendations were then provided in a short report regarding measures that could be beneficial for individual collections.

I greatly enjoyed interacting with a variety of organic and inorganic artifacts on site. By visiting numerous collections, I saw an assortment of objects ranging from bronze weaponry to glass perfume vials, figurines, and intricately beaded jewelry. Mosaics are a particular favorite of mine, and Jordan is renowned for having a bounty of beautiful ones. Being able to view mosaic depictions of pomegranates, olives, or grapes and then walking outside to see those same trees and vines still growing in the vicinity bridged the past and present in a delightful way.

The chance to assist with cleaning and identifying ceramic fragments from Petra further made the internship a memorable experience. Revealing painted designs on the ceramic surfaces — which may have last been viewed hundreds of years ago — was a reminder of how remarkable working with cultural heritage materials can be.

I’ve learned about Jordan’s cultural heritage management and the variety of artifacts held in diverse collections. I’ve been fortunate to gain knowledge of the available tools used for preventive conservation through consultation with project stakeholders. Most critically, through the internship I have gained an insight into the growing contemporary importance of digital preservation and documentation techniques for movable cultural heritage objects. The length of the internship further permitted me to explore Amman and travel to Aqaba, Petra, Ajloun, and beyond during my six weeks. By interning with ACOR, I was able to experience Jordan in a new light and gain valuable experience for my future career path. I am grateful for the hospitality shown to me by the staff and fellows at ACOR.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Madeleine Tripp is an emerging objects conservator with a background in archaeology, art history, and heritage protection. She is currently undertaking the University of Melbourne’s Master of Cultural Materials Conservation program. With an anticipated graduation in late 2024, Madeleine aims to apply her conservation skills into continued archaeological and cultural heritage work.

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The Beginning

In the academic year 1967–1968 I enrolled as a student at the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Jordan. Unfortunately, in that same period the Arab-Israeli Six Days War began on June 5, 1967. As a result of the war, in 1968 the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR; now the American Society for Overseas Research), already based in Jerusalem, decided to establish an independent archaeological research center in Amman. For this purpose, a building located very close to the third circle in Amman that belonged to one of the members of the Khalifeh family was rented.

During that time, we had Egyptian and Syrian professors, and in 1969 one of them, namely Greco-Roman specialist Fawzi Fakharani, decided to take nine of us students to visit the so-called Temple of Hercules on the Amman Citadel. During our visit we visited the excavation of American archaeologist Rudolph Dornemann. That was my first experience with American archaeologists. In 1970 we were lucky to have Professor Bastiann Van Elderen, then director of ACOR, to teach two courses in archaeology at the University of Jordan: Research Methods in Archaeology and Field Archaeology. In addition, he took us to visit the archaeological site of Tell Hesban and trained us in the field by excavating a church in Amman’s Sweifiyyeh neighborhood (Fig. 1). That was the beginning of my relationship with the American Center and American archaeologists.

ACOR Was My Second Home (1973–1977)

In 1973, the University of Jordan started an MA graduate program in archaeology, and Bastiann Van Elderen was one of the professors who established its plan of study. At that time I worked as the curator of the University of Jordan Archaeological Museum and had the chance to enroll in the program. Van Elderen taught a course on Byzantine culture. In addition, during the time Henry (Hank) O. Thompson was director of ACOR (1972–1973), he started the Tell Siran excavation and found the well-known bronze bottle with what is considered to be the first complete inscription in the ancient Ammonite language. He was followed by Bastiann Van Elderen, who continued the excavation with the participation of a group of American students (Fig. 2).

If I remember well, van Aldren left the ACOR directorship in late 1973, and his appointed successor was Prof. George Mendenhall of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His field of study was ancient Near Eastern civilizations. During his teaching career at the University of Jordan, he taught a course on the epigraphy and history of the ancient Near East, and in June 1975 took us on a trip to Wadi Muqat in the Black Desert to copy, register, and study Safaitic inscriptions (Fig. 3). In addition, at that time James Abbot Sauer was a fellow at ACOR and along with Mendenhall conducted an archaeological excavation at the Ammonite site of Umm er-Rujm with the participation of the MA students, of whom I was one. Moreover, in May 1974 he resumed archaeological excavations at the site of Rujm Khilda (Fig. 4) with the participation of archaeology MA students from the University of Jordan and a few American volunteers; of them, I still remember the name “Richard Dorsett.”

In the 1975–1976 academic year, James Sauer (Fig. 5) took over from Mendenhall, and to our good fortune he began teaching archaeological courses at the University of Jordan. I enjoyed very much his course “Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land,” and I presented a paper entitled “The Late Bronze Age Pottery in Jordan: East Bank,” which later became the subject of my MA thesis. In addition, the MA students had been invited to participate in the 1974 season of excavations at Hesban (Fig. 6). At the dig, I was introduced to American senior archaeologists, and I am much indebted to Larry Herr, who was my area supervisor in Area D, Square 2, for training me in the field of archaeology (Fig. 7). At the dig, and along with James Sauer, I was honored to be introduced to Larry Geraty, Roger Boraas, and my square partner, Orly Nelson. I became much more acquainted with American excavating methods and habits by living with the expedition team for almost six weeks. That following year—1975—was a decisive one for my future career. I became very close to James Sauer and decided to write under his supervision my MA thesis, which I defended on June 19, 1977. The late Walter Rast was a member of the examining committee.

The year 1975 was full of joint archaeological fieldwork conducted by ACOR and other Jordanian archaeological institutions, such as the Department of Antiquities and the University of Jordan. One example is the Jordan Valley survey, which was conducted under the co-directorship of James Sauer, Khair Yassine, and Mo’awiyah Ibrahim. It was my good luck to have participated in the two seasons of this survey, 1975 and 1976, and I learned much from Sauer by attending his reading of the pottery found at the sites visited (Fig. 8). 

James Sauer became my mentor in my studies, and I found myself very much attached to him. Due to this, I became a regular visitor to ACOR and remember very well the flavor of Sue Sauer’s brownies. At that time, ACOR had only a small library, but it was very useful for me, and because I had started working on the material and writing chapters of my thesis, I met with Jim for long hours during the week. ACOR became like my second home. This lasted until I sat for the defense of my thesis, which took place on June 19, 1977, and I am very proud to mention that in addition to Jim, I had Walter Rast as a member of my thesis examination committee (Figs. 9–10). James Sauer is the one who put me on the real track of archaeology, and to him I will be indebted for my whole life.

During winter 1977, Khair Yassine, then professor of archaeology at the University of Jordan, agreed with James Pritchard of the University of Pennsylvania to excavate Tell es-Sa’idiyyeh, in the Jordan Valley. However, this excavation was cancelled due to security reasons, and most of the American students returned home, except for few of them, and one of these being Barbara Porter. Khair decided to continue his excavation plan, but instead at Tell Mazar. There, I worked hand in hand with the American participants on the dig, and I have been very close friends with Barbara Porter since that time (Fig. 12).

After my successful MA defense, I was very eager to pursue my PhD studies at one of the renowned American universities. I was in fact admitted to several of these, but without receiving any scholarships. Thus, I applied to the Deutscher Akkadmischer Austauch Dienst (DAAD), received a scholarship, and left Jordan on October 6, 1977, for the city Freiburg, where I learned the German language. This did not prevent me from continuing my relationship with my adored professor James Sauer or with ACOR (Fig. 12). I remember that during my studies in Germany I presented some books to the ACOR library. In addition, I shared with James Sauer all my interpretations of the archaeological material I obtained from the Jordan Valley Survey to use for my PhD dissertation.

I cannot remember exactly when (either in 1975 or 1976) ACOR moved from Amman’s 3^rd circle to the 6^th, though I preferred the older building to the new one. Jim started thinking of buying a piece of land to build a permanent residence for ACOR. I never stopped communicating with James Sauer, then the director of ACOR, during my time in Berlin, and in winter 1979 I came back to Jordan to study the pottery sherds and flint tools from the survey for my PhD dissertation, and ACOR was my study base. I used ACOR’s library, and ACOR’s draftsman (I believe Abdel-Razzaq?) helped in drawing the pottery sherds under study.

ACOR, My Research Center

After I finished my PhD studies in 1982, I returned to Jordan and joined Yarmouk University as an assistant professor. Because of this, we moved to Irbid, but I still went to ACOR to use the library and contact people there. I believe it was in 1981 when David McCreery took over the ACOR directorship from James Sauer, but this did not mean I stopped going to the center. David is a very nice and helpful person, and he was the one to finish construction of the new ACOR building and the move from the 6^th circle to Tla’a Ali. Professor McCreery participated in numerous excavations, most notably at Bâb edh-Dhrâ` and Numeira (Jordan). In addition, he served as co-director of the Tell Nimrin excavations in Jordan.

From 1982–1984 I taught for the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of Yarmouk University, where we had several American faculty members, among them Robert Gordon, Gary Rollefson, and Scott Rolston, in addition to research assistants, including the photographer Cowherd and his wife. Those colleagues helped to establish the Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology of Yarmouk University under the directorship of Mo’awiyah Ibrahim, who was behind this.

In 1984 I began my Jebel Abu Thawwab excavation (on the highway leading from Sweileh to Jerash), and David McCreery came to visit me several times. I remember that Larry Herr and some of the Tell ‘Umairi expedition team also joined him. During the second season of excavations, ACOR asked Yarmouk University to accept the participation of around 15 American students who came to Jordan through the President’s Council for International Youth Exchange to participate on the Jebel Abu Thawwab and Khirbet ez-Zeiraqoun projects (Fig. 13). In return, a group of Yarmouk University students was to be invited to visit several universities in the USA, and this is what happened.

In the year 1979, the famous site of ‘Ain Ghazal was exposed during the process of bulldozing the highway connecting the capital Amman with the city az-Zarqa to the east. In the beginning of the 1980s, Gary Rollefson, who was a fellow at ACOR, and Khair Yassine, professor of archaeology at the University of Jordan, visited the site and decided to start rescue excavations with the cooperation of the Department of Antiquities. Unfortunately, Khair was asked to leave the project by the DoA, and ACOR and the Department of Antiquities continued the rescue excavations. In 1983, Gary joined Yarmouk University as a faculty member, and I benefited from this in that I obtained permission from the dig to study “the white-ware objects.” In 1984, Gary was offered a job at San Diego State University. He left Yarmouk, and I took over the project from him as Yarmouk University’s representative (Fig. 14), although the project continued to be a joint Jordanian-American project. Because of this project, I became acquainted with many American archaeologists who either participated on the dig or who came to stay at the ACOR residence. Gary Rollefson, Alan Simmons, and I became like brothers.

It can be stated here that during all seasons of excavations at ‘Ain Ghazal, and also durin the Wadi Shu’eib 1988 and 1989 seasons, ACOR was always involved in offering either financial help and/or a place to study, as well as facilitating the American members’ accommodation. ACOR’s permanent building was opened in 1986, a major milestone for which David McCreery deserves credit. Bert de Vries followed David McCreery as ACOR’s director (1988–1991). During this period, I was outside Jordan on sabbatical leave without pay, first at the Free University of Berlin and then at King Sa’ud University. Bert’s main archaeological interest was in documenting, restoring, and presenting Jordanian architecture from antiquity. His main love was the multi-period city of Umm el-Jimal in the Basalt Desert in northern Jordan. Yarmouk University faculty members and students were also involved in his Umm el-Jimal project.

ACOR as a Partner

In 1991, I returned to Yarmouk University from my sabbatical and leave without pay, which lasted for three years (1988/1989–1991/1992), and I was appointed as a director of the Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology at Yarmouk University. During my work, I continued the same policy of cooperation with all national and international archaeological institutions. During my period as director of the Institute (1991–1997), Patricia and Pierre Bikai were the directors of ACOR, from 1991 to 2006. Their publications and numerous fieldwork projects were a major contribution to the archaeology of Jordan. Moreover, in 1987, the cultural resources management (CRM) program was established jointly with the Department of Antiquities, with the purpose of preventing the destruction of archaeological sites in Jordan. In addition, Gaetano Palumbo, the ACOR contracted archaeologist, published an inventory of around ten thousand sites under the title “JADIS,” the Jordan Antiquities Database and Information System. All my surveyed or excavated sites were registered in this inventory.

During the tenure of Pierre and Patricia, we kept up the good relationship between our two institutions and I remember that I was always invited either to participate in workshops or to meet people at ACOR, and visa-versa, with Pierre being a regular visitor to the IAA/Yarmouk. I still remember his Arabic song to me, saying:

على دلعونا وتحت الصفصافة   وينو حبيبي زيدان كفافي

والله لأرحله وأمشي له حافي   لوكانوا  رجلي عم يوجعوني 

Pierre and Patricia’s main interest in the archaeology of Jordan was concentrated in Petra, and the excavations of the Great Temple and the Petra Church took all their time. The discovery of the Petra Church papyri absorbed much of their attention, which helped in the decipherment of these Byzantine-era documents. Pierre Bikai was also the person who advised the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, delegation to visit Yarmouk University in 1997 and to seek the possibility of starting a joint CRM project (Figs. 15–16). That delegation, consisting of William Schwab and Jerry Rose, and accompanied by Pierre and Ghazi Bisheh (then director general of antiquities), visited Yarmouk University and successfully negotiated a plan to apply to USAID to finance such a project. In addition to the exchange between faculty members of the two universities, a joint excavation project was started at the site of Ya’moun. In September 1997 I finished my role as director of the Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology and was assigned as a dean of research and graduate studies at Yarmouk University. Although I changed positions, I continued my cooperation with ACOR.

Welcome to My Friend Barbara

Pierre and Patricia Bikai were followed in the directorship of ACOR by an excellent and very close friend of mine with whom I worked at the Tell Mazar excavation in 1977, namely Barbara Porter (Fig. 17), who kept this position from 2006 until 2020. During her stay in Jordan, Barbara Porter became a friend to many Jordanians and became acquainted with Jordanian habits and customs. In addition to this, she was enormously active in studying, presenting, and preserving Jordanian archaeology. One of her most excellent accomplishments was organizing the International Conference in the History and Archaeology of Jordan in Washington, D.C., in 2007. Many Jordanian archaeologists and I were involved in the arrangement of and participation in this conference. Moreover, she much enlarged ACOR’s library collection. Due to this, it became well visited by researchers and students. She also organized a mostly monthly lecture series discussing the archaeology of Jordan, and I was a regular visitor to those events. In addition to this, during her directorship, ACOR assisted projects through its library as well as with the ACOR Conservation Cooperative, created in 2007. Under Barbara’s leadership, ACOR began implementation of the USAID-funded Sustainable Cultural Heritage Through Engagement of Local Communities Project (SCHEP) in 2014. As a result of this project, there are now several archaeological projects that were adapted to different site-specific or urgent needs, such as rescue excavation at Beit Ras and, more recently, the excavation of the Ammonite site Khirbet Abdoun.

For a researcher, the best place to go to is ACOR’s library, but in return one must give back something in thanks; thus I presented to the library all my published books (Fig. 18). Barbara Porter’s chapter in my festschrift (published in winter 2023) contributed an informative article discussing the ACOR’s role in Jordan’s heritage over 50 years. This number of years equals my number of years in very successful and fruitful cooperation with ACOR. In addition, Barbara finished her work as ACOR’s director in 2020, and I finished my job as a president of Yarmouk University in 2020 and went into retirement. Thank you to my dearest friend, Barbara. To show our gratitude and love to Barbara, we gave her a farewell party at our home (Fig. 19).

Pearce Paul Creasman

In February 2020, Dr. Pearce Paul Creasman became ACOR’s director. Dr. Creasman’s scientific interests focus on the heritage, archaeology, and environment of the Middle East and North Africa. Dr. Creasman is a cooperative and helpful archaeologist; this is reflected in his encouragement to Jordanian archaeologists regarding their publications. He continues to open the doors of ACOR’s library to all Jordanian researchers.

ACOR has influenced my archaeological career greatly and helped me in my archaeological studies and research. Many thanks to ACOR for being an excellent factor in my life.

Zeidan Kafafi received his PhD in February 1982 and since then has taught general and specialized M.A. courses at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (1982–1984) and in the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology, then the Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, (1984–present) of Yarmouk University. His major field research and subsequent publications have centered on archaeological excavations and surveys, with special emphasis on Neolithic sites in Jordan (‘Ain Ghazal, Abu Hamid, ‘Ain Rahub, eh-Sayyeh, and Abu Thawwab), which contributed to a better understanding of the Late Neolithic periods and their material culture, as well as connections with neighboring regions. In addition to the Neolithic period, he is interested in other early periods, such as the Chalcolithic, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age; thus, he has directed or participated in expeditions at sites related to those periods, among them Abu Hamid, Deir ‘Alla, Mugheir, Dhaher el-Madina, and Tell Damiya. The results of his research have been presented in both local and internationally recognized journals. He has also been active in a wide range of university and community services and has received several prizes, presents, scholarships and awards from Jordan and other countries. A royal decree was issued on March 18th, 2018, by His Majesty King Abdullah II appointing Dr. Kafafi as the president of Yarmouk University. He served in this position until September 12th, 2020, and currently he is professor emeritus in archaeology.

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