Tuesday April 11, 2017 at 6:00 p.m.
“Experiential Tourism in Petra” a lecture by ACOR Associated Director Dr. Glenn G. Corbett
About the lecture:
The Temple of the Winged Lions lies in Petra’s “Sacred Quarter” across from the so-called Great Temple. Built to honor the goddess al-Uzza, the Temple of the Winged Lions is easily seen and accessed from Petra’s main colonnaded street as well as the upper route by the Royal Tombs to the Petra Church.
Conservation of the temple is ongoing through ACOR’s Temple of the Winged Lions Cultural Resource Management Initiative (TWLCRM), and beginning in November 2015, USAID SCHEP began supporting a new local non-profit company founded by members of the TWLCRM local team—Sela for Vocational Training and Protection of Cultural Heritage—to implement critical tasks in the temple’s “southwest quadrant.” Through its training program in archaeology, conservation, documentation, and site presentation, Sela is providing more than 60 members of Petra’s host communities with much-needed vocational skills in heritage preservation, while also achieving important results on site. Sela trainees have also been involved in critical excavation and have been essential in carrying out emergency conservation measures.
Most recently, Sela and TWLCRM have worked to launch an experiential tourism program that provides visitors to Petra an interactive tour of the site. Tours will take visitors through the various tasks of cultural heritage work including documentation, conservation, pottery washing and sorting, and sifting.
About the lecturer:
Glenn J. Corbett is ACOR Associate Director and directs the Temple of the Winged Lions Cultural Resource Management (TWLCRM) Initiative in Petra. He received his Ph.D. in Near Eastern archaeology from the University of Chicago, where his research focused on the epigraphic and archaeological remains of pre-Islamic Arabia. He has also directed the Wadi Hafir Petroglyph Survey in Wadi Ramm since 2005.
Click here to download the lecture announcement as a pdf.
