by Madeleine Tripp 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…
by Clare Rasmussen The Roman Empire was one of many ancient civilizations that understood the necessity of a water supply system, and they became experts in building large aqueducts and urban water systems. They, along with the Greeks, spread new cultural institutions that required water to be used in ways that went beyond the communal…
by Lauren Erker Rural life in Jordan during the Ottoman period is a topic that has received little attention from archaeologists. While there is a rich corpus of historical writings on the late Ottoman period due to the Tanzimat reforms, archaeological literature on the subject remains scant. Any tour across the landscape of Jordan will reveal remains…
by Danielle Wolfson I am an emerging professional in cultural heritage, chosen by the United States Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (US/ICOMOS) to participate in their International Exchange Program (IEP), an honor that brought me to Amman for the summer of 2022. At the American Center of Research, I worked on…
by Kathryn Grossman I have been in Jordan for two months now, and Tom Parker’s presence is everywhere—in my work, in conversations with colleagues, on the stiff breeze at Petra. Despite twenty years in Near Eastern archaeology, this is my first time working in Jordan; I had just imagined he would be here when I…
by Amy Karoll I am currently a visiting professor in the Writings Program at New York University-Abu Dhabi and was an NEH Postdoctoral Fellow at the American Center of Research from March to August 2021. I arrived at the American Center in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and fresh from receiving my doctorate in…
by McClean Pink I am a master’s student in the Anthropology Department at East Carolina University. Throughout the months of June and July 2022, I held a Pierre and Patricia Bikai Fellowship at the American Center of Research in Amman and, while resident there, used their resources to complete the data collection for my master’s…
by Allison J. Anderson Jordan’s low female labor force participation rate has long confounded policymakers, researchers, and activists. Despite achieving progress on several determinants of female labor force participation over the last decade, including increasing levels of female educational attainment, higher ages of marriage, and lower rates of fertility, less than 15 percent of women are…
by Joel S. Burnett A visit to the Jordan Archaeological Museum on the Amman Citadel or the Jordan Museum in Ras al-Ayn brings you up close with multiple examples of stone statuary from Iron Age Amman (ca. 1150–550 BCE). These impressive sculptures include miniature statues of standing anthropomorphic figures and life-size and nearly life-size sculpted…
by Kyle Benedict Craig With support from an ACOR-CAORC Predoctoral Fellowship, I conducted dissertation fieldwork on Amman’s graffiti/street art scene from May to August 2021. During this period of on-site fieldwork, I attended art exhibitions, observed graffiti/street art painting sessions, participated in walking tours of Amman’s public art scene, and conducted semiformal interviews with artists,…
by Katarína Mokránová I remember well the time when I was learning how to write. It took years for my first crooked letters to become the handwriting that, admittedly, I am still not quite so proud of today. When I get tired, the text that I write transforms into an indecipherable sea of wavy lines….
by Elizabeth Ursic, PhD In 2020, ACOR hosted a two-week faculty seminar in Jordan called “Sustainability at the Margins,” co-sponsored with the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC). The seminar explored the opportunities and challenges Jordan is facing as one of the most water-poor countries in the world, with a growing population and a…
by Carly J. Cormier The most recent ACOR virtual lecture event, “Human Heritage: Preserving Palmyra, Petra, and Hatra,” was cohosted with the Getty Research Institute (GRI) to commemorate the launch of the Getty’s new interactive online exhibition, Return to Palmyra. The presenters discussed the unique set of challenges regarding preserving the cultural and physical remains of…
by Marco Dehner In my recent role as a fellow at ACOR, it was my responsibility to assist with the preparation of the upcoming final publication of the Temple of the Winged Lions (TWL) and to conduct my own research about this Nabataean- to Roman-era (1st–4th-century AD) site in Petra, Jordan, which will lead to…
Translated by Jackie Salzinger. You can also read this interview in Arabic. This written interview is part of a new series on Insights: “Ask A Scholar,” through which we highlight the personal experiences of fellows and other affiliated researchers. The following conversation with Nedhal Jarrar (ACOR Jordanian Graduate Student Scholarship recipient, 2020–2021) took place by email…