Insights

Welcome to Insights! Formerly our long-running quarterly e-update, since 2020, Insights has been our blog, hosting essays by fellows, interns, staff, and others.

The Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis and the Qurʾan: A Salute to ACOR

Aug 22, 2025 Posted in Fellows, Fellowships, insights, Insights, Named Fellowships, Research Tagged with Archaeology, Bible, Qur'an

Sign and landscape with ruins, Ayla/Aqaba, Jordan, by Kareem Rosshandler,

by Kareem Rosshandler I had the privilege of staying at the American Center of Research during the months of May, June, and July of 2025 and conducting research on depictions of Midian/Madyan in the Hebrew Bible and the Qur’an. Historically, Midian/Madyan is believed to have been located in the northwestern Arabian Peninsula, with its northernmost…

Terracotta Male Figurines from Iron Age Jordan

Jun 18, 2025 Posted in CAORC, Fellows, Fellowships, Insights, insights, Research Tagged with Archaeology, Iron Age, religion

Horse-and-rider figurine from al-Muqabilayn tomb (Iron IIC).

by Joel S. Burnett When it comes to understanding religion in Iron Age Jordan (ca. 1200–550 BCE), terracotta figurines offer one of our most abundant and expressive forms of archaeological evidence. These three-dimensional artistic objects fit readily into one hand (typically 10–15 cm), apparently crafted for personal use. At the same time, they appear across…

ACOR Internship Experience: Preserving Jordan’s Heritage: My Experience with ACOR’s National Inventory Project

Mar 30, 2025 Posted in ACOR Interns, ACOR Projects, Insights

by Roma Aatifi As an intern with the American Center of Research (ACOR) from September to October 2024, I had the opportunity to contribute to the National Cultural Heritage Property Database of The Kingdom of Jordan, an initiative to preserve Jordan’s cultural heritage. Known less formally as the National Inventory Project, it centers around creating…

ACOR Internship Experience: My American Center of Research Internship

Jan 26, 2025 Posted in ACOR Interns, Insights, Library

by Zain Fanik I completed an internship at the American Center of Research over the course of two weeks during December, 2024. It was a great and very valuable experience, as I was able to work with archival documentation, as well delve briefly into cultural heritage databases. What I gained the most from this experience…

Dating Fatimid and Ayyubid Manuscript Fragments through Handwriting and Material Analysis

Dec 8, 2024 Posted in Fellows, Fellowships, insights, Insights, NEH, Research Tagged with Arabic language, Archival research, archive, History

Iqrār contracted between Mubarak ibn Asad and Abu al-Shatranji in 1010 CE. Cambridge, Taylor-Schechter Collection, Cambridge University Library, TS Ar. 38.2, folio 1r. 1010 CE. (Image used with permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.)

by Sarah Islam For historians of the Middle East, medieval documents and manuscripts are integral resources to better understand the social and intellectual milieu of their objects of study. Islamic manuscript archives and repositories are often quite challenging to access; an even greater challenge is the ability to read and analyze the documents themselves. For…

ACOR Internship Experience: In the Library with Rare Books and Maps

Nov 14, 2024 Posted in ACOR Interns, Insights, Library

ACOR intern Dima Harb working in the rare books collection in the library

by Dima Nafez Amin Harb My name is Dima Nafez Amin Harb, and I am a cultural resources management and conservation graduate from the University of Jordan, the valedictorian of my major. Throughout my education, my professors would always recommend several organizations that could assist us with our study, and the American Center of Research…

ACOR Internship Experience: The National Inventory Project

Oct 17, 2024 Posted in ACOR Interns, ACOR Projects, Insights Tagged with Archaeology

Madeleine Tripp, intern, National Inventory Project

by Madeleine Tripp From August 1 to September 12, 2024, I had the fortunate opportunity to undertake an internship at the American Center of Research (ACOR) in Amman, Jordan. I worked with the National Cultural Heritage Property Database of The Kingdom of Jordan project, known informally as the National Inventory. While currently training to be…

Together with ACOR: Fifty Years of Cooperation

Sep 5, 2024 Posted in ACOR, Insights Tagged with ACOR, ACOR History, Archaeology

Presenting a book to ACOR’s library. (Photo from the archive of Zeidan Kafafi.)

by Zeidan Kafafi, Professor Emeritus, Yarmouk University The Beginning In the academic year 1967–1968 I enrolled as a student at the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Jordan. Unfortunately, in that same period the Arab-Israeli Six Days War began on June 5, 1967. As a result of the war, in 1968 the…

Joining the 2024 Study Season at Khirbet al-Mukhayyat

Jul 8, 2024 Posted in Fellows, Fellowships, Insights, Named Fellowships Tagged with Archaeology

A potsherd ready to be drawn during the 2024 2024 Study Season at Khirbet al-Muhkayyat. Photo by Nina Rozic (Jennifer C. Groot Memorial Fellow).

by Nina Rozic This year I was able to participate in the study season for the Khirbet al-Muhkayyat Project, along with Kathleen Macleod Kerr, a fellow undergraduate student from Wilfrid Laurier University. We were delighted to return to the dig house in Madaba where we had stayed in 2023 while completing the field-school credit for…

How Regional Dynamics Impact Domestic Politics: The Case of Fuel Subsidy Reform in Jordan

May 30, 2024 Posted in CAORC, Fellows, Fellowships, Insights, insights, Research Tagged with economics, political economy, political science

Sign for the Manaseer gas station along Desert Highway (Highway 15) in southern Jordan, near the turnoff to Wadi Rum, 11 April 2009. (Photo by Daniel Case; GNU Free Documentation License.)

by Molly Hickey Addressing the cost of fuel subsidies is one of the most politically challenging reforms a government can attempt. While subsidies pose a heavy burden on budgets and tend to accrue benefits toward the wealthy, they are quite popular with a large segment of the population, as they serve as a key supplement…

The Early Bronze Age IV Cultic Complex at Khirbat Iskandar

Apr 14, 2024 Posted in CAORC, Fellows, Fellowships, insights, Insights, Research Tagged with Arabic script, document studies, Mamluk

Platform pillar with offering table, Early Bronze IV, Khirbet Iskander.

by Suzanne Richard My ACOR-CAORC Postdoctoral Fellowship, which I undertook in spring 2024, focused on the preparation of an upcoming volume entitled Archaeological Expedition to Khirbat Iskandar and Its Environs, Vol. 2: Final Report on the Early Bronze IV Area B Settlements. The goal was to revise several chapters, one being a field report on one…

Through the Cracks of Détente: The Superpowers, the Arab “Radicals,” and the Coming of the Second Cold War, 1977–1984

Feb 20, 2024 Posted in Fellows, Fellowships, insights, Insights, Named Fellowships, Research Tagged with History

by Benjamin V. Allison In November 1980, the Arab League met in Amman, Jordan, for a summit aimed at promoting Arab unity, particularly against Israel and Egypt, which had concluded a peace treaty the previous year. But the summit rapidly fell apart, as members of the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front (جبهة الصمود والتّصدي) — Syria, Algeria,…

Dating Mamluk Manuscripts from Levantine Collections

Jan 23, 2024 Posted in CAORC, Fellows, Fellowships, insights, Insights, Research Tagged with Arabic script, document studies, Mamluk

Example of the naskh calligraphic script under the Bahri Mamluks, page containing Qurʾanic verses 1: 1–7 from a fourteenth century Mamluk manuscript, calligrapher unknown (LCCN 2019714580). (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, African and Middle East Division, Near East Section Manuscript Collection.)

by Sarah Islam For Islamic intellectual and social historians, medieval manuscripts are indispensable primary sources for investigating what ideas and perspectives were being discussed in a given time period and region. Islamic manuscript repositories are often difficult to access and the manuscripts they contain even more difficult to read and assess, requiring the researcher to…

Decoding Late Neolithic Tools and Technology in the Black Desert of Jordan

Dec 8, 2023 Posted in CAORC, Fellowships, Insights, insights, Research Tagged with Archaeology, black desert, neolithic

From left to right, Haparsa point; transverse arrowhead; and Badia point. (Photo by Gary Rollefson.)

by Gary Rollefson In the 1920s pilots flying over the Harrat ash-Sham volcanic fields (also known as the Black Desert) were struck by a landscape that was “rugged and desolate” (Maitland 1927: 198), “like a dead fire — nothing but cold ashes” (Rees 1929: 389), whose “odious flat-topped slag heaps” instilled a “sinister foreboding” and…

Places and the Past: The Bidul, the Layathna, and Narratives about Indigeneity in Petra

Nov 5, 2023 Posted in CAORC, Fellows, Fellowships, insights, Insights, Petra, Research Tagged with ethnography, History, Petra

by Nicolas Seth Reeves The former capital of the ancient Nabataean Empire, the city of Petra serves today as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’s most popular tourist destination. Tourism constitutes the lifeblood of three tribal communities that live in and around Petra Archaeological Park: the Bidul of Umm Sayhoun, the Layathna of Wadi Musa, and…

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