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 three monumental heritage sites and the impact archaeological sites have on local communities. While not explicitly relating to the role of digital media in preservation, the lecture was a compelling example of how digital humanities content can be successful.

Histories of Exchange

From the Bronze Age through the Roman period, Palmyra (modern Tadmor) was a caravan city and a fertile oasis. As commercial trade between the Mediterranean and Near East flourished during the Hellenistic period, Syria became an integral part of these routes (Sommer 2018, i, 40–44). The land yielded valuable natural resources, such as metals, that would have been attractive to Mesopotamian and Egyptian traders (Sommer 2018, 30, 189). While Palmyra does not have immediate access to a waterway, it acted as “the middle of a sea of sands … the bottleneck of trade between the territories on both sides of the Euphrates” (Sommer 2018, 188, 190).

Along the trade routes to and from Palmyra, some merchants would have stopped at Petra as well. Caravans would have trekked through the rock-cut Nabataean city in today’s Jordan as the middle ground between Egypt, the Mediterranean, Arabia, and central and eastern Asia. After the addition of the Via Nova Triana in the early 2^nd century CE, there was a significant increase in economic prosperity in Petra, similar to that of the Near Eastern region as a whole (Schmid 2008, 364–386).

Unlike Palmyra and Petra, the Iraqi site of Hatra is secluded, located in Upper Mesopotamia, west of the Wadi Tharthar (Ahmed 1972, 103). Hatra lay between two of the most powerful empires of the early 1^st millennium: the Romans and the Parthians. Consistent interaction between these empires resulted in Aramaic, Hellenistic, and Roman influences on Hatra visible in the city’s architecture and artistic styles. Despite its precarious location, walled Hatra and its small kingdom remained an independent state and culture for much of its history (Edwell 2017, 111–112).

The Current State of Preservation

These ancient cities, while vastly different, share at least one thing in common: their potential to enrich the lives of generations to come. While European and American archaeological efforts have been underway in the Near East for a couple of centuries now, the true value of archaeological sites rests in the hands of the local communities, individuals, and institutions who are on the frontlines of the safety and prosperity of our shared human histories.

Dr. Suliman Ali Al-Farajat of the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority (PDTRA) spoke about how, with the decrease in international tourism due to COVID-19, the Petra Archaeological Park conducted essential maintenance to support plans to boost visitor capacity and quality of services. In addition, over the years, the archaeological park has partnered with several Jordanian and regional institutions to ensure the safety of the site and the continuation of the educational and tourism initiatives. One such partnership was ACOR’s Petra Church Conservation Initiative, funded by multiple donors to preserve the mosaics throughout the church (Fig. 2). ACOR funded the installation of a protective covering for the mosaics in 1998 (Fig.  1) (American Center of Research 2021).

Dr. Al-Farajat argued that one of the most pressing issues for the PDTRA are the concerns from the local Bedouin community. The Jordanian government moved hundreds of local families out of the protected park and into a nearby village. While there is room for improvement on the park and government’s part in assisting the Bedouins (Ajaka 2014), the local community has supported the archaeological park by providing dozens of restaurants and hotels for tourists, and Jordanians see Petra as symbolic of their cultural and historical identity. Without tourism, the community would suffer from an economic decline, and yet, at the same time, the archaeological park would not be as successful as it is were it not for the education and support initiatives between preservation officials and the Bedouin community.

The ongoing political conflict in Syria and Iraq has created an entirely different set of hurdles for site management and upkeep beyond typical complications due to the age of the sites and tourism in these countries. For example, both Palmyra (Fig. 3) and Hatra (Fig. 4) were the targets of several iconoclastic campaigns by ISIL. Such attacks occurred across the region and included bulldozing structures, looting sites and museums, and removing, hammering, or shooting reliefs and sculptures (Anderson 2017, 137).

Up until the early 20^th century, the community of Tadmor lived in the old city, which had been repurposed into contemporary neighborhoods while preserving the historical and cultural integrity of ancient Palmyra. The Roman temple of Bel (Fig. 3), for example, was a Mesopotamian temple and then a Christian church before it was used as a mosque, all the while retaining its previous religious iconography (Moumni 2021). Under the French mandate after World War I, officials removed the residents of Tadmor from the old city to undertake archaeological excavations and make room for weapons storage (Sommer 2018, 4–5). During the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIL over the last decade, large swaths of the city, ancient and modern, now lie in rubble after a series of attacks in 2015 and 2017 (Moumni 2021).

Notable Syrian archaeologists Khaled al-As’ad and his son Waleed al-As’ad have dedicated their lives to the protection and prosperity of Palmyra’s deeply rich cultural significance despite the forced removal of the community and its history over the last century (Moumni 2021). Dr. Salam Al Kuntar is a board member of Syrians for Heritage (SIMAT), an organization that prioritizes the preservation of the global Syrian cultural heritage through community-based initiatives. During her panel remarks, Dr. Al Kuntar discussed how Syrian schools have begun to amend curriculums to bring students to archaeological sites to educate the younger generation.

The local community near Hatra, according to Dr. Yasmin Abdulkareem Mohammed Ali, does not yet understand the site’s archaeological importance. Due to its location — which is over a hundred kilometers from the nearest city, Mosul — the site does not have the luxury of tourism to jump-start an international interest in preservation efforts at Hatra. Unfortunately, the area suffers from frequent insurrections, which has not provided the stability required for community engagement initiatives.

Heritage in a Digital World

Designations of these three cities as World Heritage sites (Palmyra in 1975; Petra and Hatra in 1985) have garnered international interest through tourism and research, and the growing and productive partnerships between preservation scholars and local communities have proven to be significant. In addition to such community-based initiatives, there has been an increase in universities, museums, and other research institutions providing accessible educational content online in recent years. From 3-D renderings to virtual walk-throughs and online events, such advancements have come at an opportune time with the impacts of COVID-19.

I was overcome by gratitude as I attended the “Human Heritage” panel event and browsed the Return from Palmyra exhibit from my home in North Carolina. In my personal experience, this type of supplementary material, in concert with my courses, has broadened my horizons and has vastly improved my experience as an undergraduate student. While some of these online events may have begun only as a solution to temporary restrictions on travel and public gatherings, there is something to be said for the long-term ability to bring cultural heritage preservation, in digital form, into classrooms and communities across the globe. For the last year, students, scholars, and the general public have been able to engage with content that they would not have been able to access otherwise. The application of digital humanities initiatives and projects in traditional education and advocacy settings has real potential for success (Brier 2012).

In his interview for the Return to Palmyra exhibit, Waleed Khaled al-As’ad quoted his father, who, I believe, encapsulated the beauty and importance of heritage preservation: “A human being without a past is a human being with no present and no future” (Moumni 2021). Al-As’ad went on to add that the preservation of ancient sites is also an act of self-preservation: “we must hold on to the past and learn from [the] history [of] … these civilizations; they represent a part of the human experience” (Moumni 2021). Thus, while preserving these sites provides a glimpse into human history, it also reflects who we are today and how we see ourselves. What a gift that is — to be able, through advocacy and education, to create, or deepen, intergenerational connections through new technologies.

I would like to thank ACOR and the Getty Research Institute for hosting this event and the lecturers, Dr. Salam Al Kuntar, Dr. Suliman Ali Al-Farajat, and Dr. Yasmin Abdulkareem Mohammed Ali, for their time and knowledge. This lecture event was recorded and is now available online for additional viewership.

You can watch the recorded panel “Human Heritage: Preserving Palmyra, Petra, and Hatra” on YouTube via the following links:

References

Ahmed, S. S. 1972. ”Hatra, Iraq.” Archaeology 25 (2): 103­–111.

Ajaka, N. 2014. “In Pictures: Jordan Tourism Threatens Bedouin.” Aljazeera, 4 May 2014.

American Center of Research. 2021. “Petra Church Conservation.” American Center of Research, 21 June 2021.

Anderson, B. 2017. “Beyond Rome/Parthia: Intersections of Local and Imperial Traditions in the Visual Record of Hatra.” In Arsacids, Romans, and Local Elites: Cross-Cultural Interactions of the Parthian Empire, edited by J. M. Schlude and B. B. Rubin, 137–158. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Brier, S. 2012. “Where’s the Pedagogy? The Role of Teaching and Learning in the Digital Humanities.” In Debates in the Digital Humanities, edited by M. K. Gold, 1–10. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press. DOI:10.5749/minnesota/9780816677948.003.0038

Edwell, P. 2017. “Osrhoene and Mesopotamia between Rome and Arsacid Parthia.” In Arsacids, Romans, and Local Elites: Cross-Cultural Interactions of the Parthian Empire, edited by J. M. Schlude and B. B. Rubin, 111–136. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

Moumni, R. 2021. “Interview with Waleed Khaled al-As’ad.” Return to Palmyra. Getty Research Institute, 21 June 2021.

Schmid, S. G. 2008. “The Hellenistic Period and the Nabataeans.” In Jordan: An Archaeological Reader, edited by R B. Adams, 353–411. Oakville: Equinox Publishing.

Sommer, M. 2018. Palmyra: A History. Oxford: Routledge.

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Achievements: reflections on four transformative years

Initiated in 2016 and encompassing the indexing, digitization, description, and online publication of 31,000 photographs, the ACOR Research Library Photographic Archive Project represented a great leap forward in ACOR’s efforts to enhance our archives, reduce barriers to information, and promote international scholarship. Thanks to a Title VI program American Overseas Research Centers (AORC) grant from the U.S. Department of Education (2016–2020), ACOR has been able to make thousands of photos downloadable instantly from its open-access online platform. These images, along with their metadata, can be reused anywhere.

Prior to this project, ACOR’s archival photographs lingered in the basement—undisturbed and uncataloged—for years, in formats that, in terms of modern library usage, were rapidly becoming inaccessible. Since the launch of the photo archive platform in 2017, these images have been in constant use by high-school and university students, professors, researchers, publishers, and prestigious institutions, such as the Smithsonian. In 2020, the photo archive processed its largest ever image request, providing an extraordinary 700 images to the Living Museum of Umm Qais project. ACOR’s archival materials have gone from being under threat of disintegration and all but out of reach to being digitally preserved and regularly accessed by over 6,500 distinct users each year.

One of the most significant achievements of this project was the creation of an authority list that for the first time compiles all major transliterations and Arabic-script versions of more than two hundred prominent heritage site names in Jordan. This list, made open access for other projects to benefit from, incorporates internationally recognized standards—including the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, Library of Congress naming authorities, and local taxonomies (such as those of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities and Royal Geographic Society)—and thus provides previously disconnected data in one place.

In order to encourage scholarship based on ACOR’s archival materials, an exhibition and fifteen photo essays were published on the project website to provide context about the collections, greatly exceeding the project goal of only ten essays. Some are interviews with distinguished archaeologists, among them Nancy Lapp and Bert de Vries. Others draw out themes from among the images, such as the feminist history of archaeology and community heritage. People beyond ACOR are following suit with their own such works. In 2019, Boston College’s undergraduate journal of Middle Eastern studies, Al Noor, published a photo essay of Jane Taylor photographs from Mada’in Al-Saleh in Saudi Arabia.

Presentations designed to increase awareness of the photo archive have been given in the U.S. six times (including twice virtually), in Jordan eleven times, and twice in other international venues (London, Athens). Four video lectures, including one in Arabic, have been produced and shared widely online. These can be viewed on the ACOR YouTube channel. Once again, the project’s efforts far exceeded its stated goals, which were to give two U.S. and two international presentations. We are proud to have reached a much broader audience.

Building an interconnected community of practice

The ACOR Photo Archive was made possible through self-reflective collaboration. Although originally envisioned to solely make ACOR’s archival images available to academics and professionals, the project ended up interacting with a far broader audience. This was due to the variety of people who worked on the archive taking time to listen to what was important about the archive with respect to each other’s area of specialist knowledge and membership of different (potential user) communities. By listening to these insights, we were able to make decisions about the design of the online archive that would make it accessible to a range of international groups of differing education levels—from scholars to schoolchildren. Project archivists with master’s degrees in library and information studies (MLIS) and in digital humanities, museum studies, and the history of photography hailing from the U.S. and the UK worked together with Jordanian-Palestinian librarians and digitization technicians with in-depth archaeological knowledge of Jordan and the wider Middle East to produce an archive that was suited to the Jordanian context.

The ACOR library and archival team sought to share the archival knowledge they themselves were gaining through the project at every stage. A newly initiated program of digitization internships brought students and graduates from around the region to participate. In Jordan, ACOR is one of the few institutions offering such training, which directly helps to advance the field in the country. Since 2017, ACOR has run workshops on archival methods that have been instrumental in building an archival community of practice in Jordan and the wider region. Attendance trebled in three years, with sixty-five gallery, library, archive, and museum professionals from eighteen institutions participating in 2019. As a result of these initiatives, ACOR has become a hub for capacity-building in archival skills.

The photo archive team also sought to share lessons learned throughout the project by participating alongside peers and leaders in the field at the Council on Library and Information Resource’s Digital Library Forum 2019, as well as by bringing North American and international experts to Jordan.

All of these collaborations matter because decisions taken at the metadata level inform how digital objects are presented to—and therefore are understood by—both local and international communities. In the postcolonial context of overseas research centers such as ACOR, this is a significant responsibility. Consequently, the photo archive that this multicultural team produced is “fit for purpose” for promoting understanding of Jordan and the region locally and far beyond.

Arabic-language accessibility

In the course of the project, the team became increasingly aware of the limitations of the original project scope with regards to the language that would make it possible to sift through the 31,000-photo archive to locate images of a particular place or topic. As in the world of print publication, the digital humanities landscape has been dominated by the English language. As a result, English-language scholarship often provides the default references.

Translating the analog photographs to a digital existence on the open internet wasn’t enough to ensure sufficient access to the wide range of stories they had to tell. We needed to seize this opportunity of funded, focused efforts to literally translate the textual data they offer: the handwritten English-language notes of photographers and scholars that we were transcribing had to be translated into Arabic. We then needed to synthesize these notes in both languages into the mechanism for finding information online: search terms or keywords.

Through efforts pioneered by ACOR library staff, this two-step translation process, which provides rich information in Arabic as well as English, was given its initial trial run through the Madaba photo series within the Rami Khouri collection. This had great results but took double the time to produce the metadata, even though the academic texts consulted for the captions were available in Arabic, a rarity for cultural heritage texts.

The types of limitations we were encountering aren’t unique: digital humanities is an emerging field facing up to its inherited problems worldwide. However, as ACOR is a research center dedicated to supporting knowledge development within the postcolonial context of Jordan, it was vital for our team to deconstruct barriers blocking equitable access to archival material upon which further knowledge may be produced, whether in the form of academic scholarship or public history.

Engagement

In order to begin dismantling such structural inequalities, we built outreach and engagement into every activity. Making a resource open access isn’t enough—you need to actively encourage use, recontextualization, and reinterpretation of the images. Since the project’s launch in 2017, we have invited many different voices to interpret the archival records.

When the first Jordan School Librarians Conference was held in 2018, we jumped at the chance to tell these vital conduits of knowledge about the resource ACOR offered for Jordan’s heritage, a subject that makes up a significant part of the middle- and high-school national curriculum. In turn, this engagement exposed us to the needs of these new user groups. We added a “citation template” section for each photo in order to clearly communicate how students could reuse photos with appropriate attribution. As children began to use the archive as a research tool, they benefited from our reliable information source for their school projects, such as on Petra, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Wikipedia

The SCHEP Photo Archive

Based on the experience gained through creating the photo archive, ACOR and the USAID Sustainable Cultural Heritage through Engagement of Local Communities Project launched the SCHEP Photo Archive in June 2020. This was a pilot project to archive the project’s born-digital images, providing bilingual image titles, descriptions, and keyword search terms to enable both Arabic and English speakers to fully benefit from this resource. The more than 5,000 photos in the USAID SCHEP collection will be available to browse on the photo archive platform from March 2021.

Next steps

These accomplishments are not the end of ACOR’s photo archive projects. Next up: the ACOR Digital Archive Project, made possible with another American Overseas Research Center Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education. This new grant-funded work will make available 18,000 digital objects, including audio and video recordings, documents related to archaeological projects, and more, from both new and existing collections. The new project also incorporates an educator fellowship program to help activate these archival materials, whereby faculty from U.S. community colleges and minority-serving institutions will receive fellowship support to develop open-access lesson plans based on the archive. The new project will also put a special focus on enhancing Arabic language metadata.

For future updates on ACOR’s Digital Archive, join our mailing list. You can also browse select highlights from the collections at instagram.com/acorjordan/.

We would like to thank all those who participated in the ACOR Photo Archive Project and to recognize the numerous library patrons and academics who answered our many questions with patience and generosity.

*The phrase quoted in the title of this article is from a report by project external evaluator Aaron Rubinstein, 28 September 2020.

Also on Insights:

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Ashley obtained a master’s degree in the History of Photography from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in 2012, and has since worked at a number of institutions with photographic collections: Autograph ABP in London, the British Museum’s Middle East Department, and the Macleay Museum in Sydney. She has also worked as a curatorial researcher at the Royal College of Art in London, the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford and at the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) at the University of Arizona. Ashley arrived in Amman from the CCP in Tucson, Arizona where she was researching the LIGHT gallery (New York: 1971-1987) for a future exhibition that opens this December.

Ashley’s experience takes on a particular relevance for ACOR’s photo archive because of her experience in the Middle East department of the British Museum. There, she worked with curator St John Simpson to catalog a small collection of personal photo albums from a British explorer active in the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to this, she worked on a collection of early 20^th century Middle East postcards and a collection of glass plate negatives from British Museum expeditions in the Middle East. Working with early images of heritage sites across the Middle East proved a fantastic foundation for working with ACOR’s very similar collections.

In tandem to working with institutions, Ashley has a few ongoing independent projects. In 2012, Ashley started the curatorial collective Hemera with a group of three photography historians.  Working with established and early-career artists, as well as photographic archives, Hemera curates exhibitions and organizes public programs. Since launching they have curated over 15 exhibitions in the UK, Europe, US, and Australia for museums, festivals, art fairs, non-profit galleries, and universities. Hemera is currently working on a collection based exhibition for the Southeast Museum of Photography in Florida. Ashley has also branched out on her own and is independently curating exhibitions. She has an upcoming group show opening on November 7, 2019 entitled Now You See Me: Visualizing the Surveillance State at Photo Access in Canberra, Australia. At ACOR, Ashley is leveraging her curatorial practice to research ways in which ACOR’s Photo Archive can produce future traveling exhibitions.

An endeavor Ashley started five years ago was to launch the London Photography Diary and the New York Photography Diary websites. These websites list and review photography exhibitions and events in their respective cities. Maintained by volunteer editors, whom Ashley oversees, the sites are some of the most widely followed in the fine art photography world, boasting a current readership of 90,000 unique users a year.

The excavation grid at Zeiraqun (1988-1990). Photo from the Bert de Vries collection at ACOR (BV_J_S_038)

Facade in Courtyard of House III at Umm el-Jimal (1988-1990). Bert de Vries collection at ACOR (BV_J_S_079)

Ashley’s role as Project Archivist involves cataloging the collection contributed by Bert de Vries, ACOR’s Director from 1988 to 1991 and a longstanding member of ACOR’s Board of Trustees. Among other projects, Bert de Vries invests much of his time on the Umm el-Jimal Project in North Jordan. Working with 800 35mm photographic slides, Ashley is producing a finding aid, and digitizing Bert’s slides from many sites in Jordan (for example, see above), but with a particular emphasis on Umm el-Jimal. In addition to Bert’s collection, she will also be working on Kenneth Russell’s collection of 1,000 photographs. Russell, who died in 1992, photographed a range of archaeological sites such as Petra and surrounding regions, and other important archaeological sites in Jordan, as well as Palestine, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Iran. Ashley is carrying on the work of other Project Archivists at ACOR including Rachael McGlensey, Corrie Commisso, Jessica Holland, and Steve Meyer. Within the coming months, ACOR’s digitized collection, currently standing at 21,000, will include the Bert de Vries collection of 850 images, which will be available on ACOR’s digital platform the ACOR Photo Archive.

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View and download the 2019 Archival Methods Workshop presentations below (in order of presentation):

Day 1 (July 2, 2019) – National Library of Jordan

Day 2 (July 3, 2019) – ACOR

We hope you enjoy this photograph montage from the workshop, put together by Eslam Dawodieh (ACOR Library and Archives Assistant): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uMhNmPjWmZ5gKhZHipLCUj9cLHTsPzlv/view

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Half a century is a long time to be an archaeologist- but Nancy Lapp has been working for 50 years and then some. Born in 1930, Nancy has been engaging with the archaeology of Jordan and Palestine since 1957. In recent decades, her primary focus has been publishing volumes on the excavations directed by her husband Paul Lapp, which he was unable to publish himself due to his untimely death in 1970.

Fortunately, photographs do not take nearly as long to publish. Nancy Lapp recently donated the Lapps’ photographic collection to ACOR and over the past six months these images have been steadily digitized and published online by myself as Project Archivist, and my colleague Eslam Dawodieh, Digitization Intern. Given the long timespan of their photographs- from 1957 to 2002- the collection provides valuable insights into the field and how sites have changed over time. Their digitization, metadata creation, and online publication are part of the larger ACOR Photo Archive project, supported by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant since 2016. All photos presented here come from the Paul and Nancy Lapp collection at ACOR, unless otherwise noted.

The volumes Nancy has published have been incredibly valuable for understanding the history and archaeology of the Holy Land in Jordan and Palestine. In 1970, Paul tragically died in a swimming accident, leaving Nancy with five children and the majority of his excavations unpublished. This included sites such as Iraq al-Amir, Tell er-Rumeith, Bab edh-Dhra, and Tell Taanach/Ta’anak. She felt a huge responsibility to continue his work, saying “The publication of excavations that take place are an obligation to the academic world, an obligation to the country in which you are working, and an obligation to all those who have supported the work. I knew I must see to the publication of his excavations as I was able” (PTS lecture). A close colleague of Nancy’s confirms her dedication to this work: “I’m not sure I have met many other people who are so wholeheartedly committed to the people and places of Jordan and Palestine…the ethical commitment to publishing the results of research done in the sixties is admirable” (Morag Kersel, personal communication). Nancy’s research and publication of all of this excavation material has enabled countless scholars to use that information in their own studies and further advance ideas and knowledge about ancient society in the region.

Nancy’s contributions have not gone unacknowledged. In 2015, ASOR named their new award for Nancy: The Nancy Lapp Popular Book Award. Although her own excavation volumes might not fall under this category, she said: “They named the award after me because to write a good popular book about archaeology, you have to have done the technical research that lies behind it.”[i] And Nancy has certainly done that.

Nancy’s impact has not just been limited to scholarly publication. In March, she gave a public lecture at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, which is now available online (see below).[ii] As also remarked by Morag Kersel (personal communication), “She had that room full of some 150 people captivated. She’s an amazing storyteller…she had great anecdotes that were also filled with information. I can’t imagine she wasn’t a great instructor in the same way. Her enthusiasm for a life in archaeology came across so easily and so readily.”

Nancy Lapp did not initially set out to be an archaeologist. During her undergraduate studies, Nancy became intrigued by the study of the Old Testament. Her professors, George Ernest Wright and Frank Moore Cross, had studied under influential biblical archaeologist William Foxwell Albright and they encouraged Nancy to do the same. At Johns Hopkins University, Nancy became Albright’s first female student, as well as his secretary. During this time Albright also gained another student, whose mastery of both modern and ancient languages was immediately reported to the other students by an impressed and intimidated Nancy. As recounted in her lecture, this worrisome student turned out to be Paul Lapp, her future husband! They married after their first year together at Johns Hopkins and were described as a team from then on.

In 1957, Paul and Nancy joined the excavations at Tell Balata (biblical Shechem, present-day Nablus) to gain excavation experience. At Tell Balata, Paul was assigned to excavation work, while Nancy was assigned to object registration and pottery analysis, tasks that were at the time often considered ‘domestic’ women’s work. This sort of gender-biased task assignment was the norm when women first began to join excavations, but by the time Nancy entered the field, British women such as Kathleen Kenyon and Diana Kirkbride had been excavating in the Middle East for years with outstanding results. American women had been directing excavations in other areas of the Mediterranean, but Nancy claims that it was perceived as early days for them working in this region. Things started to change in the 1950s and early 1960s, however, and Nancy remembers that “quite a few of my women colleagues had their beginnings at Gezer or places like that,” working in the field under Wright (Interview with author, 2019).

Despite the fact that tasks such as object analysis were often assigned to women and regarded as not as important as actual digging, objects are crucial for understanding a site and its sociocultural settings. The material an object is made from may tell us if it was traded from far away. If we can figure out who used certain objects and who didn’t, it can indicate social stratification. Generations of ‘archaeologists’ wives’ undertaking this work highlight the truth in the phrase “Behind every great man there is a great woman.”[iii] Today, women command respect as archaeologists in their own right. Accomplishing tedious tasks like pottery sorting is now much appreciated, but women are able to choose their own path.

After the Suez crisis in 1956, there weren’t many tourists in the region. Mindful of the sensitive political climate which meant things could change at any moment, Nancy and Paul decided to travel after excavating in 1957 and “tried to see as much as they could as fast as they could” (PTS lecture).

When they weren’t traveling, the Lapps studied and worked at the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem (ASOR; today The W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research), and in 1960 Paul Lapp became Director there. With Nancy helping to share the burden of directorship, Paul instigated numerous digs in the Jordan Valley and West Bank, including work with other institutes – the British, French, and German. Nancy Lapp mentions that learning from the others was very important to them, in this “circle of scholarship,” as E.F. Campbell Jr. also called it.[i] Working at an institution like ASOR also connected the Lapps with some big names in scholarship, including Père Roland de Vaux, Martin Noth, and Kathleen Kenyon, all of whom Paul worked with at various points.

Like many of their contemporaries, Paul and Nancy Lapp identified themselves as biblical archaeologists, and Nancy provided the biblical as well as the present-day names for many of the sites in their photographic collection. But since ‘biblical archaeology’ is not a term used as commonly today, during my interview with Nancy, I was curious to hear Nancy’s thoughts on the reputation of biblical studies and archaeology. Nancy explained:

“This was a constant all through my career, [us] saying that we are not out to prove the Bible. Some churches are, and some archaeologists are, which is what really gets the headlines…But we were trying to understand the Bible, saying ‘Well how do we interpret the Bible, what’s its meaning?’ It’s not a literal book, it’s what the people were after, what people used to explain what they believe. So I would say it [‘biblical archaeology’] does get a bad rap, but it’s understandable too” (Interview with author, 2019).

After Paul stepped down as director in Jerusalem in 1965, he and Nancy continued to work, travel, and raise their children at ASOR. Nancy relates that they initially began taking photographs to record their travels like any tourist. They soon realized, however, that they would likely want to use their photographs for teaching – and use them they did. Many of their 35mm slides are marked up with various series of lecture numbers from multiple uses. Later in life Nancy used their slides to prepare tours she led in Jordan and Palestine.

In 1965, Paul first surveyed and then began excavation at the expansive Early Bronze Age cemetery of Bab edh-Dhra. He directed another season there in 1967, but after 1970 the project was taken over by Walter Rast and Tom Schaub, who was was first Paul’s and then Nancy’s student. That work expanded into what became known as the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plains Project (EDSP), and included several more Early Bronze Age sites southeast of the Dead Sea. David McCreery, former director of ACOR in Amman (1981–1988), was also a student of Nancy’s and assisted at EDSP and other excavations in Jordan. Nancy also assisted with several subsequent seasons of excavations, which is where a large portion of her photographs come from. Through EDSP alone, Nancy has touched generations of archaeologists. Directorship of the project has been transferred more recently to Meredith Chesson and Morag Kersel, both of whom got to know Nancy through this work. Kersel monitors the impact of looting at these sites. Photography is vitally important in documenting such activities and tracking its impact over time, as shown by aerial images of the increasingly pockmarked site of Feifa. The careful process of photography and documentation of artifacts and their contexts by archaeologists lies in direct contrast to the process of looting and deliberate destruction of heritage, which leaves little or no information behind.[v]

Since 1970, Nancy has taught at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and has served as Curator at the university’s Kelso Museum of Near Eastern Archaeology.The impact of a passionate teacher on students is incalculable. But when that passion is put into education through museum exhibitions, this can expand its impact enormously. Creating exhibits on her own excavation material would not only reach invested scholars, but also members of the public, especially if Nancy herself was on hand to provide additional insight. The museum website details its permanent exhibitions, many of which contain material from Paul and Nancy Lapp’s excavations.

Nancy Lapp never set out to be an archaeologist, which makes her dedication to the field all the more admirable. She and Paul “drifted into” the field at a time when such a thing was still possible, but their contributions have had a lasting impact. Between their two lively personalities and in-depth knowledge of sites, they undoubtedly inspired countless students. Their photographs provide a unique insight to both their professional and personal lives, as well as an insider’s look into an earlier era of archaeology.

Rachael McGlensey is Project Archivist for the ACOR Photo Archive Project between January-December 2019. She is from Pennsylvania and recently completed her MA degree in Museum and Artifact Studies at Durham University, UK. Read more about Rachael and her activities at ACOR here.

Endnotes

[i] Pittsburgh Theological Seminary website, no date. “Book Award Named After Museum Curator Emirata” https://www.pts.edu/Nancy_Lapp, last accessed June 26, 2019.

[ii] Lapp, N. March 2019, “Adventures and Discoveries from Half a Century of Life as an Archaeologist.” Lecture given at Pittsburgh Theological Society, Pittsburgh, PA, March 2019). Avaialble online at: https://www.pts.edu/Archaeology-Lectures, last accessed 20 June, 2019.

[iii] See Cohen, G.S. and Joukowsky, M.S. (eds.), 2004, Breaking Ground: Pioneering Women Archaeologists (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press), for analysis of the historical ‘great man’ narrative, and for biographies of some fantastic women archaeologists.

[iv] Campbell Jr., E.F. 1970. “Paul W. Lapp: In Memoriam,” The Biblical Archaeologist 33 (2), pp. 60-62.

[v] Chesson M. and Kersel, M. “Frequently Asked Questions,” Follow the Pots Project website: https://followthepotsproject.org/?page_id=36, last accessed 20 June, 2019.

The post Images from a Lifetime Dedicated to Archaeology: The Paul and Nancy Lapp Collection at ACOR appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

Rachael earned B.A.s in History and Anthropology from Penn State University, and she first became interested in archival work when she enrolled in an Archival Management class there. Rachael applied her passion for archival work to her hobby of performing with the Penn State marching band by becoming their volunteer photo archivist.

After Rachael completed her undergraduate studies in 2016, she undertook her M.A. in Museum and Artifact Studies at Durham University in England. While at Durham, Rachael enrolled in a Professional Exhibition Design course where her group focused on the theme ‘Women in Archaeology.’ Through the course, Rachael was exposed to numerous female archaeologists and their contributions to Middle Eastern archaeology. Rachael also took a short work placement at Tyne and Wear Archives in Newcastle, where she says her work provided an ideal introduction to the work environment she currently experiences at ACOR.

Rachael’s main task as Project Archivist  is organizing and digitizing the Paul and Nancy Lapp Collection online together with Digitization Intern Eslam Dawodieh, and coordinating metadata and image uploads with Assistant Librarian Samya Kafafi. The collection consists of approximately 2,500 35mm slide photos of sites throughout Jordan. Roughly one third of the 1960s slide photos are of excavations at Bab edh-Dhra and other Dead Sea Plains sites. Rachael is continuing the work of a series of project archivists including Corrie Commisso, Jessica Holland, and Steve Meyer, along with the core project team. This work is leading to the digitization and upload of thousands of historical photographs from the ACOR Archives to the STARCHIVE platform where they are accessible to the public. Additionally, Rachael is assisting the team in reformatting the photographic collection guide and finding aids, which will soon be uploaded to WorldCat.org in order to increase global access to ACOR’s resources.

Rachael hopes to pursue a career in collections management in the future. She views her work at ACOR as an important step in getting her there.

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  تناولت ورشة العمل التي عُقدت في المركز الأمريكي للابحاث الشرقية (أكور) في شهر تموز الماضي والتي كانت بعنوان الارشفة  الالكترونية وتبادل مهارات المعرفة بين المكتبات والمتاحف ومراكز المعلومات عن كيفية جمع وادخال البيانات المتعلقة بالصور والوثائق، وهنا سوف استوفيكم بشرح مبسط عما تم تقديمة خلال الورشة عن طريقة ادخال البيانات

البيانات الوصفية هي معلومات بيبلوغرافية مُهيكلة (يعني مبينة وفق نظام معين) مهمتها وصف وايضاح وتسهيل استرجاع موارد المعلومات واستخدامها عند الحاجة إليها، وتعتبر الميتادا أداة مرنة في مساعدة المستفيد في الحصول على المصادر

من خلال مشروع الأرشفة الالكترونية الذي نعمل به في أكور والمتخصص في ارشفة الصور المتعلقة بالمواقع الأثرية والتاريخية في جميع مناطق الاردن وعدد من الدول المجاورة كمصر، سوريا، العراق، اليمن، السعودية، باكستان و تركيا، فإننا نقوم بإدخال البيانات في جداول خاصة تتضمن على عدد من الحقول كالعنوان، تاريخ الانشاء، المسؤولية، كلمات مفتاحية، انواع الافلام المستخدمة، وصف تفصيلي، حقوق الملكية، اسم الموقع وهنا اقف قليلا لشرح طريقة البحث عن اسم الموقع من خلال الاعتماد على عدد من الفهارس كفهرس دائرة الآثار العامة لأسماء المواقع واستخدام موقع الميجا جوردن، فهرس المركز الجغرافي الاردني، مكتبة الكونغرس الامريكية و موقع خرائط غوغل، فقد كان السبب من وراء البحث الدقيق لأسماء المواقع بأن المواقع الاثرية في الاردن لها عدة طرق للكتابة بإختلاف مصدرها او الشخص الذي وثقها وبالتالي كان لابد من ادخال كل الاسماء التابعه لاي موقع بأشكله المتعددة لتسهل على الباحث الحصول عليه

(STARCHIVE) بعد عملية ادخال البيانات في الحقول يتم رفع الصور والبيانات على قاعدة بيانات خاصة تدعى

قاعدة البيانات هذه مُتاحه للجميع من خلال موقع أكور الالكتروني حيث يتمكن الباحث من تصفح الارشيف بمحركات بحث متعددة ومختلفة ، البيانات متوفرة باللغتين العربية والانجليزية

عملية توثيق البيانات تحتاج منا الكثيرمن الجهد والبحث من خلال استخدام الكتب والمواقع الالكترونية المتوفرة على شبكة الانترنت وأحيانا  الإستعانة بالباحثين والاثريين مباشره لتوفير المعلومة الصحيحة قدرالامكان للمستفيد والتي تمكن الباحث الاعتماد كليا على هذه البيانات ومدى صحتها وتوثيقها

كان هذا ملخص من المحاضره التي قٌدمت في ورشة العمل، للاطلاع أكثر  اضغط هنا

   تفضل بزيارة فهرس الارشيف للاستمتاع وزيادة المعرفة بتاريخنا العريق من خلال الصور التاريخية والآثارية الرائعة والمميزة

https://acor.digitalrelab.com/index.php   من خلال الضغط على الرابط التالي

مساعدة أمينة المكتبة ومنسقة المشروع والمسؤولة عن ادخال البيانات والمعلومات في المشروع

سامية خلف

Find out more…

If you’d like to receive updates from the ACOR Photo Archive project, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin. We encourage researchers to contribute to our archive – so if a photo that we post jogs your memory of a past dig or a museum find, please don’t be shy and get in touch on archives@acorjordan.org or @acorarchives (insta) or @acorjordan (twitter).

The post البيانات الوصفية للصور والوثائق – مشروع أرشفة الصور في أكور (Metadata – ACOR Photo Archive) appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

Since we started our ACOR Library Photographic Archive project (ACOR Photo Archive for short) in the fall of 2016 we have reached the milestone of 11,000 photos available for free online. ACOR’s 100,000-strong image archive holds unique views of both famous and relatively unknown archaeological sites across Jordan, as well as high-quality anthropological photographs. The threat to cultural heritage posed by photograph decay, as well as threats to the physical structures themselves due to conflict and development, makes this a pertinent moment to utilize digital technologies for preservation. The ACOR Library Photographic Archive Project is made possible through an American Overseas Research Centers grant from the U.S. Department of Education (Title VI).

 ACOR Photo Archive, https://acor.digitalrelab.com

Earlier this summer, the ACOR Photo Archive project team held its 2^nd skills-sharing workshop on Archival Methods, bringing together participants from libraries, museums and archives from across Jordan, and from further afield, including Cairo and Ramallah. We identified the need for networking space amongst institutions running archival projects in Jordan. This workshop focused on a common concern for every archival digitization project: How to achieve the best quality scans /copies of original archival materials in the most sustainable way?  Digitization can be complicated; there is equipment to learn how to use, software to master and a whole host of details to keep in mind. Although it can appear daunting it’s not nearly as overwhelming as it seems at first.

Steve Meyer, our Project Archivist from September 2017 to July 2018, formed a training double act with our Archival Assistant Razan Ahmed, working together to reduce the complexities of the digitization process down to simple steps that would be easy to replicate at any institution, no matter the size of the collection (or the archival team!).

One of the trickiest aspects of digitization is color calibration – as the digitized images need to look like the originals. Scanning technicians need to have a setup that is color-accurate for the entire workflow process, from what is seen on the monitor while creating their master TIFF scan to every derivative version down the line that researchers will see. The workshop focused on the use of photo industry standard color/grayscale charts for prints and IT8 charts for slides. Steve and Razan then went through the steps to create profiles for slide film and photographic prints that ensure high levels of accuracy. For scanning technicians it’s also crucial to know that your screen is showing you the correct colors. By using a monitor calibration device, in our case a Spyder5Pro, every week, it ensures that any changes to the monitor are kept in check and technicians can scan with the assurance that what they are viewing is truly what they should be seeing.

Participants inspecting equipment used in scanning and calibration process during Steve and Razan’s presentation.

Later in the day, Samya Khalaf, archival Project Coordinator and Assistant Librarian, led participants through her research methods for transforming metadata into information with the potential to help viewers unlock latent histories within image collections. Metadata can be one of the biggest obstacles facing digitization projects, and at ACOR we work on the principle that a small amount of reliable information is better than a larger amount of vague information which may be misleading. You can read more about Samya’s methods here.

The big questions of archiving

Samya’s presentation generated a lively debate that expanded outside of the field of information-gathering and got at the heart of the issues brought up during the transformation of material archives into digital ones. These include, what are the best practices for acquisition of archival material? Can the threat of the destruction of documents of significant historical value held by private individuals justify efforts to persuade them to donate their collections to library or archival institutions with controlled environments suitable for preservation? Should everyone have access to all archival material? What is the role of the state, private institutions and/or NGOs in the protection of historical documents? What are the ways in which institutions can collaborate in order to benefit from each other’s expertise and resources, whilst still keeping their unique identities? Although by no means were all these questions answered on the day, we found ourselves reflecting on the archival principle of providing as much access as possible to all, as well as recognizing the need for sensitive material to be designated as such by the archivists and perhaps restricted from public view. In any case, these questions led us to explore more about each other’s projects and plan how we could collaborate and exchange technical knowledge in the future.

Collaboration + Community

The huge advantage of being able to gather 25+ participants from 12 institutions was the opportunity to make connections with others who are breaking new ground in the transformation of archives in the digital age. We found that we were facing many of the same questions, the same demands to acquire new digital skills and to equip our archives with new technologies. We resolved to share freely the learning of established projects, and to support those embarking upon new projects.

Participants sharing a laugh during the training at ACOR.

We had the chance to swap notes on photograph and document archiving at the Jordan National Library, where we particularly enjoyed seeing their book scanning set up and map imaging copy stand.  ACOR trainers became the trainees at the Documentation of Objects in Archaeological Museums (DOJAM) project of German Protestant Institute of Archaeology (GPIA), based at the Amman Citadel / Jabal al Qal’a. Jutta Haeser and Hashem Kries demonstrated their exciting object photo studio and 3D scanning set up, on a very hot day following the workshop. We look forward to hearing project updates from other national institutions that we were thrilled could join us – including the Department of Antiquities, University of Jordan and Yarmouk University Libraries, as well as American Research Center in Egypt, Darat Al Funun, and the Palestinian Museum.

Participants and ACOR Photo Archive Staff gather for a photo at the end of the day.

Free Resources

If you’re interested in digital archives, please check out our training materials (most documents are in English and Arabic) which are free to download. While there are numerous instructional materials in other languages, a lack of Arabic content limits educational possibilities for archive professionals in the Middle East. As ACOR makes progress on its own photo archive it’s looking for ways to bridge that language barrier and make digitization training more accessible in the region.

Find out more…

If you’d like to receive updates from the ACOR Photo Archive project, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin. We encourage researchers to contribute to our archive – so if a photo that we post jogs your memory of a past dig or a museum find, please don’t be shy and get in touch on archives@acorjordan.org or @acorarchives (insta) or @acorjordan (twitter).

Written by Jessica Holland and Steve Meyer

The post Sharing Reflections from ACOR Photo Archive’s Workshop 2018 appeared first on ACOR Jordan.