Thanks for joining us on Insights! Tell us a little more about yourself and your current project.

I am thrilled to be here! I am currently a doctoral candidate in the development sociology program at Cornell University, where my research explores how the development of renewable energy and smart electricity shape experiences of urban life in Amman. As an interdisciplinary social scientist, I draw on tools and methods from geography and anthropology, and my work is rooted in postcolonial and intersectional feminist approaches. Something that I find particularly fascinating about energy infrastructure is the way that it transects multiple scales of interaction and exchange, from the intimate practices of caring for one’s home to the cultivation of regional and globe-spanning flows of data and capital. Through my research, I hope to contribute to ethnographic understanding of how the transition from hydrocarbon to renewable resources is reshaping lived spaces across these scales.

During my ACOR fellowship in Jordan, I am exploring the distribution of renewable resources across Amman, documenting how changing energy infrastructures are reshaping daily life in a cross section of different neighborhoods. I am working with local architects and community organizers to map how the transformation of the built environment both shapes and is shaped by household- and neighborhood-level energy practices. Jordan was one of the first countries in the region to turn towards an aggressive renewable energy development plan, and for over a decade now, renewable energy development has flourished at both the utility and household scales. This makes Jordan a particularly rich site from which to examine energy transition, from the gleaming, utility-scale solar farms of Ma’an to the simple, micro-scale rooftop solar water heaters (Fig. 1) that increasingly bevel the city skyline (Fig. 2).

What is one thing someone might not know about your area of research?

I am trained as a political ecologist, which means that I am always thinking about the ecological dimensions of social and political processes and the politics of ecology. Political ecologists have long worked against the artificial separation of “natural” and “social” worlds, asking critical questions about how resources come to be valued, cultivated, and exchanged in particular ways. So, when I think about renewable energy, I think about the material, geophysical qualities that make it different from hydrocarbon resources, as well as the financial, technical, and social arrangements that shape how it is developed and the kinds of possibilities it might open up. This also means that I approach environmental knowledge as rooted in place, forming in and through particular sets of social relations and historically situated systems of meaning-making. To put this in slightly more concrete terms, a solar panel is so much more than a device for capturing energy from the sun; it contains within it the history of its relations of production — the material resources it was built from, as well as the labor conditions under which it was built, and the conditions that made it possible to be shipped from its point of production to its point of use. And once installed, it creates not just the flow of energy but also financial and information flows that tie together multiple networks of people with different ways of valuing time, energy, and risk (Fig. 3).

Who is someone who has inspired or influenced you in your course of study?

After I graduated from college, I had the privilege of working at a small, grassroots environmental center in Palestine called the Environmental Education Center. The director of the center, Simon Awad, was the first person to introduce me to the incredible biodiversity of the region and its rich ecological heritage. Having grown up in Southern California, I already had a deep appreciation for the beauty and complexity of desert and chaparral ecologies, but Simon helped me begin to see the profound linkages between social and environmental systems. Spending time at the center enabled me to better understand the diverse ways that people cultivate, care for, and form attachments to the land, and through this experience I began to see how environmental protection is bound up with social and political liberation. These perspectives have indelibly shaped my approach to researching renewable energy and smart electricity infrastructure, as I center questions of access, equity, and environmental justice in thinking about energy transition.

Finally, what do you love about Amman?

I love cities, and there are so many things that I find beautiful about urban life in Amman. On any given day you can probably find me at a suq or walking the streets of the balad, listening to the thrum of sidewalk life. One of my favorite thinkers, AbdouMaliq Simone, developed this concept of people as infrastructure,^[1] which centers the provisional movements and actions of real people that make cities work. I really see that here, in the sounds and movements that animate the city center; it’s like watching an orchestra. The slow footsteps of street vendors pushing wooden carts filled with ka’ek; the radio waves broadcasting the sound of morning prayers through shop doors and windows; the cadence of vendors unloading boxes from carts and trucks, stacking goods to be sorted and organized, and, of course, the musical refrains of passing trucks selling gas canisters or watermelons. To me, this is the heartbeat of the city — the movements, the interactions, the people that suture together the spaces of life between the stone and cinderblock buildings.

^[1] Simone, A. M. (2004). “People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg.” Public Culture 16 (3): 407–429.

Thanks, Kendra, and we look forward to learning more in the future about the results of your research!

Kendra Kintzi is a doctoral candidate in development sociology at Cornell University in New York, where her dissertation examines the material politics of renewable and smart energy development in the Middle East. Questions of resource governance, urbanization, and the political economy of infrastructure development drive her research. She draws on ethnographic, archival, and digital methods, and she centers intersectional feminist approaches by asking how urban communities in Jordan experience and shape processes of environmental and infrastructural change. Prior to joining Cornell, Kendra worked as a federal evaluator on renewable energy and smart-grid development projects across the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Originally from California, Kendra earned dual BA degrees in development studies and comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated with highest honors in the major.

The post “Ask A Scholar” with predoctoral fellow Kendra Kintzi appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

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 Melissa J. Scott (ACOR-CAORC predoctoral fellow, 2019–2020; fellow in residence at ACOR winter 2020–spring 2021) took place by email in April and May 2021.

Thanks for joining us on Insights! Tell us a little more about yourself and your current project.

I am a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Berkeley. My dissertation project investigates the role of music in displacement from three different angles. Focusing on Amman, I first listen to how contemporary music performance makes audible histories of forced migration to Jordan. I then examine how NGO music programs contend with Western “humanitarian” norms in their work with displaced and marginalized populations. Finally, I explore how listening practices in displacement are critical to subjectivities among Syrian musicians in Amman. This last approach focuses on urban soundscapes and the “unification” of the call to prayer in Jordan by way of radio broadcast.

My research has brought me to study music and language across the SWANA region.¹ I have been enormously privileged to be able to study Arabic and Turkish languages in a number of countries, mainly Jordan, Egypt, Oman, Turkey, and the United States. I am also an amateur oudist and performed for a number of years with the Aswat Ensemble in Oakland, California, and Disoriental at UC Berkeley.

What is one thing someone might not know about (ethno)musicology?

Well, not many people realize ethnomusicology actually exists as a discipline. So, I am here to tell you that it does exist! And that degrees in ethnomusicology are different from degrees in music performance. Some ethnomusicology programs do require performance training as part of the degree, but many others (such as Berkeley’s) do not. Most of my study in Arab music performance was in addition to my full-time graduate coursework. Also, some might not realize that ethnomusicologists cultivate a very diverse set of skills, as we tend toward interdisciplinary work. I’m happy to say that I’ve benefitted from a very collegial environment among graduate students at Berkeley as they have introduced me to different disciplinary perspectives and scholarship.

Who is someone who has inspired or influenced you in your course of study?

There are too many people to count! But I would say that my primary oud teacher, Ustaz Omar Abbad, has been a huge inspiration and influence on my course of study. I first tried to teach myself oud the summer before graduate school in 2014. I had a Turkish oud that was way too big for me, and some pretty suspect workbooks that I bought online. I then met Omar when he visited the Bay Area on a teaching residency with the Aswat Ensemble. I attended his oud and maqam classes twice a week, but our lessons were cut short when he returned to Amman. The following summer I received a U.S. Department of Education FLAS (Foreign Language and Area Studies) fellowship to continue my studies of Arabic, so I picked a language school in Amman in order to continue studying oud with Omar in addition to my other coursework. Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to regularly study with Omar on my research trips to Jordan.

Omar is widely known for his generosity, humor, and patience as an educator, and I deeply respect him as both a musician and person. He was my first introduction to Jordan and many of my interlocutors, so I owe him a lot!

Here is a video of him performing taqasim (instrumental improvisation) on maqam hijaz, one of the main melodic modes in Arab music:

Here is another clip of him teaching how to improvise on maqam saba, which many consider the saddest melodic mode in Arab music. In this lesson, he offers a map of how to navigate ajnas (singular, jins; a small group of notes) when melodically exploring the mode. In some ways, taqasim could be considered an art of modulating between different modes, which all have particular flavors or moods. Maqam saba is my favorite because of its interesting melodic structure, microtonal tuning, and evocative character.

Finally, could you please recommend some music for our readers to listen to? How do you personally find out about new artists or performance opportunities?

Amman hosts a number of rich, diverse music scenes, but I am most familiar with the “Arab music” scene, which is itself a contested category. Regardless, I find that Facebook is often the best way to keep up to date with new artists, releases, and events. I’d recommend following music institutions as well as individual musicians. If you would like to learn more about Arab music, the National Conservatory of Music in Amman regularly hosts music appreciation workshops that are open to the public. That would be a great way to learn about particular Arab composers and musicians, and Arab music more broadly. Some other institutions, groups, and musicians to keep an eye out for include (in no particular order) the Shoman Foundation, Etihad Chamber Orchestra, Juthoor, Amaan Choir XXI, Bait al Nai (which hosts fantastic nay-making workshops), Bait al-Ruwwad, Tareq al Nasser, Laith Suleiman, Tareq Jundi, Lara Elayyan, Rula Barghouthi, Nasser Salameh, Yarub Smarait, Yazan Sabbagh, Natalie Saman, Yousef Musharbash, and Layth Sidiq. I also occasionally perform with Awtar Amman, an oud ensemble at the Crescendo Music and Art Academy. Of course, there are also very popular musicians and groups in the alternative music and rock scenes, including Aziz Maraka and Autostrad.

This was just a partial list—my apologies to all of the talented artists in Jordan I have neglected to mention!

As for particular pieces of music, here are a few favorites from Jordan:

1) “Tala’a min bait abouha” (roughly, “Leaving Her Father’s Home”), as performed by Tareq Jundi

This is a classic song that is often broadly attributed to Iraqi musical heritage, and in this video it’s attributed to composer Othman Al Mosuli. In his rendition, Tareq Jundi applies a number of extended oud techniques and harmonies common to contemporary solo oud performance. The end of the clip features a snippet of the song as performed by renowned Iraqi singer Nazem al Ghazali in the mid-20^th century, which I find a good point of comparison.

2) “A Dabke Groove–Tayara / Ma’aniyeh (The Flying),” by Laith Suleiman

This is a really fun EDM rendition of some popular dabke melodies, performed by nay player Laith Suleiman. I’d recommend comparing this version with these other settings too.

3) “Palestinian Mashup,” by Luai Ahmaro and Natalie Saman

Here is a medley of Palestinian folksongs, many of which are common to Jordanian and Levantine musical heritage, arranged in a contemporary dance-pop setting. I’m particularly struck by the resources they draw on to further the rhythmic drive and trajectory of the song: “trap” percussion and bass from hip-hop, which is increasingly common in dance-pop production; percussive chords with a marimba sound; and the use of dabke calls (“huh! huh!”) on some offbeats, which simulate a live dance setting. If you turn on the subtitles/closed captioning on YouTube, it provides careful translations into English. You may also notice that much of this was filmed at Wild Jordan here in Amman.

Thanks, Melissa, and we look forward to learning more in the future about the results of your research!

1. Editor’s note: “SWANA” stands for Southwest Asia and North Africa, an alternative to the commonly used term “Middle East” as a part of decolonial practice. For more on this, see, for example, the open letter “Objection to the Term ‘Middle East’” by Wadha Al-Aqeedi (Mathqaf, 1 December 2020).

Melissa J. Scott is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Berkeley. She teaches and studies topics in music and sound in Arab-majority societies, and her dissertation examines the role of music in displacement in Amman, Jordan. Previously, her undergraduate honors thesis at the University of Chicago focused on the history of jazz in Turkey, and she is an oudist and performs with Disoriental at UC Berkeley and Awtar Amman in Jordan. Her fieldwork research has been supported by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship and an ACOR-CAORC predoctoral fellowship. During the 2017­–2018 academic year, she was a Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) fellow at the American University in Cairo, where she studied Arabic literature and Egyptian dialect while pursuing an internship at a local music center. She has also studied Arabic in Oman (through the Critical Language Scholarship [CLS] program), Jordan (FLAS), and California. Her research interests broadly include Levantine and Gulf music, anthropology of humanitarianism, critical refugee studies, secularism and secularity, theories of place and place-making, sound and violence, gift exchange, and late Ottoman studies.

The post “Ask A Scholar” with ethnomusicologist Melissa J. Scott appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

For the last hundred years, the archaeological community has assumed that certain palettes and mortars found at archaeological sites in Jordan were used to prepare and contain cosmetics—but were they really? And even if they were, had the makeup compounds been created with local ingredients or brought in through trade? These were some of the questions I hoped to address while in Jordan thanks to the Pierre and Patricia Bikai Fellowship.

Once I had compared the forms of cosmetic palettes and mortars from the sites of Tall al-‘Umayri and Khirbat al-Balu’a and performed non-destructive analysis of residues found on them, my research goal became a broader investigation. Did a link exist between cosmetic palettes uncovered at a variety of sites in Jordan from the late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BC) through the Iron Age (ca. 1200–330 BC)? And could I determine the extent of potential cosmetic adornment in ancient Jordan?

While chemical residue analyses have been completed on several Egyptian artifact types, such as kohl in tubes and on applicators,* stone cosmetic palettes from Jordan seem not to have been examined in this way. The residue analyses on Egyptian artifacts returned a series of ingredients that included galena (lead sulfide, used as eyeliner), stibium (also used for eye makeup), and fat**, which served as a base for many kinds of cosmetics. These data points served as a starting point for our residue analyses of the ‘Umayri artifacts.

We performed SEM-EDS analysis on cosmetic palette fragment #186 in the lab at the University of California, Riverside. In SEM-EDS, a scanning electron microscope—which employs a beam of electrons to produce an image of the surface of an object with staggeringly fine detail—is used along with an energy-dispersive X-ray detector, or EDS. Because the electron beam of the SEM excites the atoms in the sample, the EDS can “read” the atomic structures that are present and tell us what elements are present. In the case of #186, SEM-EDS found copper, a common coloring agent in ancient cosmetics, and a high carbon content that indicates the presence of organic material.

A sample of residue extracted from palette fragment #701 allowed us to subject it to gas chromatography, which separates out the chemical compounds in the sample. These are then analyzed through mass spectrometry, a technique in which the separated compounds are subjected to ionization (bombardment by electrons). The result is chromatograms that allow us to identify substances present. This was done in the La Sierra University chemistry labs by Dr. Jennifer Helbley, who documented a variety of fatty acids, steroids, and alcohols.

La Sierra University cosmetic palette fragments #186 and #701, both limestone from Tall al-‘Umayri excavations. #186 by Betty Adams. #701 by Vera Kopecky, Center for Near Eastern Archaeology, LSU.

Dr. Helbley used infrared spectrometry on pestle #5054.  This type of analysis relies on the different ways that substances absorb and effect wavelengths of infrared light. This pestle was shown to have hematite and a possible mixture of minerals such as esseneite and shulamitite, which occur naturally in Jordan and elsewhere. These three minerals, all reddish-brown because of their iron content, could have provided color.

Seventeen cosmetic items from the La Sierra University (LSU) collection went through a series of particle component analyses (PCA) and partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) (on Progenesis software) at the Institute for Biological Chemistry at Washington State University to determine if chemical signatures were present on the palettes and if the chemical compounds from the residue present were associated with palettes and mortars of specific forms. The initial indications are forms of the palettes did indeed group based on the chemical signatures, based on models run by Dr. Anna Berim, research associate at WSU. This demonstrated that the cosmetic mortars and palettes are more similar to each other than they are to what we call “perfume pots.” We intend to run these same types of analyses on the residue retrieved from palettes excavated at various sites in Jordan in order to build a picture of adornment patterns throughout the region.

Since 2018 we have been working with these stone objects, and last summer we tested a field-analysis system that allows us to complete non-destructive testing on cosmetic palettes and mortars from sites in Jordan.

While the worldwide pandemic has temporarily halted my fellowship studies in Jordan, I look forward to resuming work with the Department of Antiquities and sharing the resulting information in a database available to all researchers. Our hope is this data will give us starting points for answering the research questions noted and for expanding our knowledge of cosmetic adornment in Jordan in antiquity.

* Issa Tapsoba, S. Arbault, P. Walter, and C. Amatore, “Finding Out Egyptian Gods’ Secret Using Analytical Chemistry: Biomedical Properties of Egyptian Black Makeup Revealed by Amperometry at Single Cells,” Analytical Chemistry 82(2) (2010): 483. Doi:10.1021/ac902348g.

** David A. Scott, “A review of ancient Egyptian pigments and cosmetics,” Studies in Conservation 61(4) (2016): 185–202.

The post Cosmetic Adornment during the Iron Age in the Southern Levant appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

Christine Sargent is the Spring 2019–2020 ACOR-NEH fellow and an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver. During her ACOR fellowship, Dr. Sargent will be working on her first ethnographic monograph, which is based on her Ph.D. dissertation.

Dr. Sargent began research for this project in 2013–2014, with support from the University of Michigan’s Rackham Graduate School and International Institute. She returned to Jordan in the fall of 2014 as a Fulbright Student Program fellow. She has conducted over 20 months of fieldwork, primarily in Amman, interviewing family members, teachers, therapists, and activists involved in the lives of children and adults with Down Syndrome.

While at ACOR this spring, Dr. Sargent will continue visiting familiar faces from her previous fieldwork while focusing on developing the book project. She will also start collecting data for a project examining the impacts of prenatal screening and diagnostic technologies on pregnancy and childbirth, from the perspective of both health professionals and women themselves.

Dr. Sargent earned her Ph.D, in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan in 2018. Her scholarly work has been published in The International Journal for Middle East Studies and Somatosphere.

The post Christine Sargent, NEH Fellow, Spring 2020 appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

Khirbet Qazone, located near the southeastern shore of the Dead Sea in Jordan, was discovered in 1996 and surveyed and excavated until 2004. Khirbet Qazone has been identified as Mahoza, mentioned in the 2^nd century A.D. Babatha papyri that were discovered in the ‘Cave of Letters’ on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea.

The excavation site is comprised of a large cemetery mostly dating from the 1st – 3rd centuries A.D. Burial remains at the site include pottery, jewelry, engraved tombstones, and textiles, as well as at least 53 identifiable Greco-Roman style tailored garments, many of which are complete. These garments are comparable to those found at Fayum in Egypt, Palmyra in Syria, and Masada in Israel/Palestine, but their exceptionally well- preserved condition makes them invaluable for study and exhibition. The manner in which the bodies were interned in a meter and a half deep arcosolia under-cut to the east and tightly sealed with adobe bricks, is similar to the characteristic burial method of Khirbet Qumran.

The last phase of the northern sector of the cemetery at Khirbet Qazone was early Christian as indicated by a different burial method, corpse orientation, and symbols on tombstones. This area is now associated with the discovery in 2015 of a nearby church.

______________________________________
Help ACOR Advance Knowledge 
Donate to the ACOR Annual Fund today

Assist us in providing our programs and services to researchers worldwide

_______________________________________

Dr. Politis is an archaeologist educated in Greece, the United States, Belgium, and Britain. He obtained his doctoral degree in archaeology at the University of Ioannina in Greece in 2004. His early fieldwork was in Greece and Liechtenstein. From 1988 until 2011, he was based at the British Museum which sponsored his excavations in Jordan and Oman. He specializes in the early Byzantine and early Islamic periods.

His most important work was the discovery and subsequent excavation of the Sanctuary of Lot on the south-eastern shore of the Dead Sea, followed by the publication of a major report on that project with the British Museum (2012). He has also published Holy Footprints across the Jordan: A Journey to the Ancient and Religious Sites on the Eastern Side of the Jordan Rift Valley (2010), The World of the Nabataeans (2007), and many scholarly articles. He has also conducted research on ‘The Origins of the Sugar Industry’, and he presented public lectures at ACOR in 2016 and in 2018 on the sugar industry in Ghor es- Safi, including on recent work supported through USAID SCHEP and other supporters. 

Dr. Politis completed two projects for the Syrian and Greek governments: coordinating the documentation of all the mosaics of Syria, and an exhibition on Hellenistic Syria in the Hama Museum. He is also working with the Jordanian and Greek governments to conserve and shelter the mosaics and buildings of the Monastery of St. Lot. He also played a key role in establishing the Museum at the Lowest Place on Earth below the site with the support of Department of Antiquities.

The post Konstantinos D. Politis, ACOR-CAORC Post-Doctoral Fellow Fall 2019 appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

Safa’ Joudeh is a graduate of Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan (2018-2019), with a degree in Architectural Engineering. She is interested in the reuse and renovation of heritage and archaeological sites. In fall 2018, Safa’ joined ACOR as an Intern, and in spring 2019 became a Publication Trainee, in support of the Temple of the Winged Lions Cultural Resource Management (TWLCRM) Initiative.

By Pauline Piraud-Fournet & Safa’ Joudeh

In Petra, on the northern bank of the Wadi Musa and facing several major buildings that belong to the ancient ceremonial and civic center, stand the remains of a major Nabataean sanctuary called “Temple of the Winged Lions.” This huge complex was discovered between 1973 and 2005 by the American Expedition to Petra (AEP) led by archaeologist Philip C. Hammond. The main features of the excavated area include domestic units, a large temple and ancillary facilities, and on its north side an elegant courtyard surrounded by benches. Most of these buildings were likely built between the 1^st and the 4^th century AD.

Since 2009, ACOR has undertaken the TWLCRM Initiative in order to enhance and preserve the archaeological site for future visitors. Efforts have also concentrated on the preparation of the publication of research and excavation of this important complex. For this purpose, the archives produced over four decades in the field by the AEP were transferred to Jordan and stored with the data recently collected by the TWLCRM Initiative. ACOR is now in the process of digitizing, identifying and describing this material.

In order to study the Temple, what information is available?

Pauline writes:
“Thanks to a Publication Fellowship from ACOR, I had the opportunity to help prepare the groundwork for a multi-year collaborative research and publication project. Under the supervision of Jack Green and with the support of the ACOR Publication Committee, I started by carrying out a bibliographical review and assessment of the archives produced and collected during the excavations and site management work at the site. The survey included bibliographical references and approximately thirty published volumes and articles directly related to the TWL excavations, as well as twelve other publications and reports related to the work of the TWLCRM Initiative and the conservation of the site. Approximately fifty other volumes and papers about Petra and the Nabataeans were added to the set of bibliographic references since they can be regarded to be useful for contextual, comparative, and reference purposes. Through this review, I identified a number of preliminary issues, including aspects of the site’s wider context, the state of research regarding the world of the Nabataeans in the 1970s when the AEP Program was launched, and the objectives of Philip C. Hammond.”

Beyond the work on the bibliographical survey, the aim of this fellowship was also to explore and identify the available data to prepare a final publication. They include the archaeological material housed at ACOR and at the Department of Antiquities (Amman and Petra), and the archives produced by the AEP and TWLCRM Initiative during excavation and conservation projects. This scientific data consists of more than 200 unpublished interim and preliminary reports, notebooks written in the field by the excavators, item registers, more than 20,000 photographs depicting fieldwork and findings, a large amount of pottery and object drawings, and at least 340 plans, elevations and stratigraphic sections.”

Safa’ writes:
“As TWL Intern and Publication Trainee, I helped process, identify, photograph, and measure a large number of archaeological objects excavated and sifted from the TWL. I then undertook the assessment and description of the architectural documentation, and drew up an inventory of all the drawings made during the excavation seasons between the 1970s and the 2000s. I prepared spreadsheets based on the labeling system that Dr. Hammond was using, and categorized the drawings (plans and sections) upon the different areas. Different types of pictures were found, field documentation on graph paper and tracing paper, original hand-inking drawing on tracing paper, blueprint copies, and black and white photocopies. With the help of the ACOR Archivist Jessica Holland, I planned the scanning and rehousing process for one hundred and sixty-three original identified drawings.

“This project is an important chapter in my early career path, as a young Jordanian architect, who is highly committed to the support and enhancement of cultural heritage in my home country, Jordan. I learned a lot from working on digitizing such a huge range of archival material.”

From all this documentation, we started to reconstruct the history of the excavation, highlighting its organization and process, placing areas and subareas on a new schematic ground plan of the sanctuary designed on Adobe Illustrator to offer a better understanding of the archaeological reports and registers.

Which tasks and scientific issues are emerging?

Throughout the exploration of the publications and archives, many topics and issues appeared as outlines for future studies. Hammond already noticed and discussed many of them in his preliminary publications. The American archaeologist described the temple, mentioned the domestic units and ancillary buildings.  He identified among them a workshop where portable altars were likely made as tourists’ or pilgrims’ souvenirs, a metal workshop, an oil workshop, a painter’s workshop, and a marble workshop. He also offered an interpretation about the deities worshiped (likely the goddesses Al-‘Uzza or Allat), phasing and chronological markers, and the impact of earthquakes on the history of the complex. Nevertheless, Hammond focused on specific aspects more than others. For instance, many of his papers deal with stratigraphic and chronological issues, and provide brief presentation of remarkable archaeological and architectural elements.

By contrast, the limited analysis of the architecture, architectural decoration, pottery, coins, and attempts at interpretation in terms of worship practices is noticeable. Likewise, an issue regarding the boundaries of the sanctuary, its temenos, was addressed superficially and still needs to be resolved. The stone elements, plaster and stucco samples, archaeological artifacts, i.e. more than 400 complete pottery vessels, 75 terracotta figurines, 128 lamps, 600 coins, 30 statue fragments, 40 inscriptions, ostraca and graffiti, 630 metal nails and objects, 250 stone objects, and glass, bone and ivory items, beads, and so on, need to be studied in-depth and will give rise to synthetic studies.

Furthermore, since excavations were resumed at other sites connected with the temple up until 2005, including the Nabataean and Roman so-called Temple of the Qasr al Bint, the Great Temple, ez-Zantur Houses, the Market, most of the publications from Hammond’s time take minimal account of contemporary discoveries made in Petra at those sites during the 1990s and early 2000s. Likewise, during the period of the American Expedition to Petra, and prior to the work of ACOR, some planning efforts were made to prepare the site for tourism purposes, and these early proposals and efforts need to be described and assessed.

However, this overview of the bibliographical references and the archives enable us to highlight a list of tasks to be performed in order to provide a comprehensive set of data, as well as the key research issues that can constitute the outlines of a future final publication. The research issues could regard the context and identification of the temple’s environment and boundaries, and the analyses of the architecture and decoration of the whole complex in order to provide final reconstructions or visualizations. A new ground plan needs to be drawn from the 1/20^th scale AEP archaeological surveys adjusted on the recent topographical survey. With the scanning of elevations, they will allow a better assessment of the temple’s construction in Antiquity and the implementation of an architectural study. Other issues would address the identification of the deities, the functions of the ancillary facilities, the domestic buildings, the dating evidence, the ancient religious life and pilgrimage practices, the methodology and work processes implemented for the AEP excavations, the history of conservation and the implementation of the TWLCRM Initiative. All these topics must be approached anew in the light of a comprehensive study of the material and the remains, and in the light of more recent discoveries and studies carried out at Petra or elsewhere in the Nabataean world.

In order to highlight the richness of this archival collection, we presented and discussed the result of our work together at the Temple of the Winged Lions Study day at Al-Hussein Bin Talal University, Wadi Musa, on July 9th 2019. Pauline also presented her work during a Fellow’s Talk at ACOR, Amman, on July 16th, 2019.

Pauline writes:
“Working on this project and working at ACOR was extremely beneficial to me for many reasons. On one hand, the exploration of the TWL archive at ACOR gave me the opportunity to improve my abilities in terms of process, classification and exploitation of archaeological archives and data. On the other hand, the bibliographical assessment allowed me to enhance my knowledge of the Nabataean word and archaeological methodology.”

We would like to express our gratitude to Barbara Porter, Jack Green, Qutaiba Dasouqi, Qais Twassi, Marco Dehner and Tamara Dissi since it has been a pleasure working with them on the TWL Publication Project at ACOR.

______________________________________
Help ACOR Advance Knowledge 
Donate to the ACOR Annual Fund today

Assist us in providing our programs and services to researchers worldwide

_____________________________________________

The post Reviewing the Temple of the Winged Lions (TWL), Petra: Digging through Forty Years of Archives appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

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.

________________________________________
Help ACOR Advance Knowledge 
Donate to the ACOR Annual Fund today

Assist us in providing our programs and services to researchers worldwide

_____________________________________________

The post Ashley Lumb, Project Archivist at ACOR, Summer–Winter 2019 appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

Will’s dissertation is on apocalypticism in the modern Arabic novel. An analytic category associated with street preachers and low culture, apocalypticism has been employed by Arab novelists, a highly educated and mostly secular bunch, in response to the political and social upheaval that the Arab world has witnessed in the last century. In addition, Will’s dissertation treats the reception of Western texts by Arab writers and shows how Arab novelists writing under the shadow of apocalyptic catastrophe — constant war, rapid urbanization, the destruction of natural and social orders, and massive emigration — have consistently adapted works of French and English literature to channel their eschatological anxieties.

As a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at ACOR, Will is planning to dive deep into the Jordanian novel, a rich and understudied genre, and produce a chapter of his dissertation on the Jordanian shade of apocalypticism in the work of Taysir Subul, Ghalib Halasa, Ibrahim Nasrallah, and Ayman al-‘Utum. While he is in Jordan, Will also plans to meet with Jordanian novelists, their readers, and scholars of literature.

Will received an M.A. (in passing) in Comparative Literature from Harvard in 2017 and a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Arabic from Georgetown University in 2012. His first book, Poet of Jordan: The Political of Poetry of Muhammad Fanatil al-Hajaya (Brill, 2018), is a close reading of the work and life of Jordan’s foremost nationalist poet whose satirical poetry on regional politics won him international fame. The book contains a biography of Hajaya, forty-five of his poems translated into English, four interviews, and an introduction by Clive Holes. Will began this research when he was a 2013–14 U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Jordan. Will’s research has also been published in the Quaderni di Studi Arabi, Middle Eastern Literatures, and the Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies. His translations of short stories and poetry from the Arabic have appeared in Banipal, Middle Eastern Literatures, Arabic Literature (In English), Nomadics, The Conversation, and Muftah. He is currently at work on a translation of Surakh fi Layl Tawil (Cry in a Long Night), the first novel by Palestinian novelist Jabra Ibrahim Jabra.

Links

Poet of Jordan: https://brill.com/view/title/38667?lang=en

Appearance on Laylat Qasid (Lelit Gasid / ليلة قصيد) reciting “Oh Condoleezza Rice!” by Muhammad Fanatil al-Hajaya (2014): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNj4IR546II

The post William Tamplin , ACOR-CAORC Pre-Doctoral Fellow Fall 2019 appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

Dr. Martínez began research on this project while on a Fulbright scholarship in 2013-2014. He then returned to Jordan in the Fall of 2015 as an ACOR-CAORC pre-doctoral fellow (see his blog from the previous fellowship) and will have completed more than 20 months of fieldwork in the country, twelve of which were spent observing and working in three different bakeries in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

While at ACOR, Dr. Martínez will be returning to his old haunts in Amman in order to build on his previous ethnographic research. He will also interview policymakers, politicians, activists and ordinary citizens on recent changes to the bread subsidy, enacted in early 2018. Dr. Martínez will also spend some time building the groundwork for a new project, which will examine repertories of protest and contentious politics in Ma‘an and Aqaba, where he will be spending part of his fellowship.

Dr. Martínez earned his Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Cambridge (King’s College). His scholarly work has been published in International Political Sociology, the International Journal of Middle East Studies and International Affairs. In addition, he often writes for a general audience. His work has appeared in Al Jazeera, Jacobin, Jadaliyya, Foreign Policy,  Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and the Times Literary Supplement.

________________________________________
Help ACOR Advance Knowledge 
Donate to the ACOR Annual Fund today

Assist us in providing our programs and services to researchers worldwide

_____________________________________________

The post José Ciro Martínez, ACOR-CAORC Post-Doctoral Fellow Summer 2019 appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

When visiting the archaeological sites of southern Jordan, it is sometimes easy to forget just how colorful the ancient world would have been. Petra, once described as a “rose-red city”, is now known to have been filled with vibrant color. Even the facades of its famous rock cut tombs were plastered and brightly painted. The same is true for the surrounding settlements, such as Humayma, where the interior walls of residences and other structures were richly decorated by wall paintings by those who could afford it.

Thanks to the support of ACOR through a Kenneth W. Russell Fellowship, I had the opportunity this summer to help study a large corpus of painted plaster fragments previously excavated at Humayma, with the hope of learning more about the tradition of wall paintings both at the site and in the wider region.

The site of Humayma is located approximately 80 km north of Aqaba and 80 km south of Petra and lies just west of the Desert Highway. Archaeological fieldwork at Humayma has investigated the site’s Roman fort, complex water system, numerous churches, and an Umayyad Period qasr (elite residence) that was once home to the Abbasid family. For a background to the site, see the ACOR Newsletter for Summer 2015.

In 1996 excavation began on a new structure (Area E125), the visible remains of which were characterized by a concentration of painted plaster fragments on the surface. Archaeological investigation of the structure brought to light a room (Room A in the plan below) that was once richly decorated with wall paintings. This room was part of a larger residential complex dating to the Nabataean Period, next to which was a community shrine also containing wall paintings (just to the south of Room A)

The excavation of this structure uncovered a large corpus of wall painting fragments displaying a wide variety of colors and motifs. In addition to geometric patterns, the fragments contained depictions of vegetation, architectural motifs, and even figures, such as a labeled portrait of Clio, the Muse of History. A similar depiction of Clio was found in the Terrace Houses at Ephesus, Turkey.

Many of the fragments of painted plaster from this structure were previously studied as part of a MA thesis (Karas 2000) and several have been published (Oleson et al. 1999: 422, fig. 9; Reeves 2019: 7, fig. 9). There has not been, however, a comprehensive study of the wall paintings from this structure or a full publication of all the excavated fragments.

Thanks to ACOR’s support this study is now well underway. Funding from the Kenneth W. Russell Fellowship enabled me to travel to ACOR and study the painted plaster alongside Dr. M. Barbara Reeves, director of the Humayma Excavation Project. Assisted by two other Humayma team members, Barbara Fisher and Brian Seymour, we carefully documented and described all saved pieces of painted plaster and attempted to reconstruct the now fragmented motifs.

One of the major difficulties we faced was the shortage of published comparanda against which we could compare the identified motifs and designs. In southern Jordan, only a handful of structures with Nabataean and Roman wall paintings have been published. Many of these structures come from Petra and the surrounding area, including the elite residence at ez-Zantur IV, the Petra Great Temple, the painted houses in Wadi Siyagh, villas in Wadi Musa, and the famous painted room in Siq al-Barid (Little Petra).

On the other hand, this relative lack of comparanda means that our study will result in much needed new information about the repertoire of Nabataean and Roman painted motifs in the region. It is curious, for example, that the wall paintings from Humayma contain a relatively high number of figural depictions, which do not seem to have been common elsewhere in Nabataean wall painting. Though the initial phase of the structure dates to the Nabataean period, its position close to the subsequently built Roman fort suggests that in a later phase the wall decoration may have been influenced by Roman tastes. These wall paintings may therefore display a mixture of local and Roman characteristics and thus help our understanding of the exchange of artistic traditions between the two groups.

Our next step going forward is to complete the analysis of the fragments and prepare for its publication. The results of our study will be published by Dr. Reeves and myself as a chapter in the fourth volume of the Humayma Final Report Series.

References

Karas, B.V., 2000, Domestic Architecture and Fresco Decoration at Humayma: Social Pretence in Provincia Arabia. M.A. Thesis, University of Victoria.

Oleson, J.P., ‘Amr, K., Foote, R., Logan, J., Reeves, M. B., Schick, R.,
1999, “Preliminary Report of the Al-Humayma Excavation Project, 1995, 1996, 1998.” ADAJ 43: 411-50.

Reeves, M.B., 2019, “A Nabataean and Roman shrine with civic and military gods at Humayma, Jordan”. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 29.2: 1-22.

________________________________________
Help ACOR Advance Knowledge 
Donate to the ACOR Annual Fund today

Assist us in providing our programs and services to researchers worldwide

_____________________________________________

The post Piecing Together the Wall Paintings from Humayma appeared first on ACOR Jordan.