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…
Archaeology
Being Introduced to Archaeology in Jordan at Khirbat al-Mukhayyat
by Miya Pletsas I had the opportunity to participate in the Khirbat al-Mukhayyat Archaeological Project in Jordan for my first field school as an undergraduate from Wilfrid Laurier University thanks to a Jennifer C. Groot Memorial Fellowship award from the American Center of Research. I enjoyed working alongside my peers, the local community, and professors,…
Recyling Refuse in Ancient Petra
by Sarah Wenner Hidden below an urban façade but nevertheless essential for its shaping, a city’s trash was routinely used in construction processes across the Roman world. Before that occurred, both established and ad hoc frameworks dictated the lifecycles of urban waste, from its initial discard, through its sorting and storage, to its reclamation by…
In Small Things Remembered: Late Neolithic Material Culture of the Black Desert, Jordan
by Yorke Rowan Material culture provides a glimpse into the important objects that people created, exchanged, and carried with them for functional and symbolic purposes. The study of archaeology requires a suite of specializations and perspectives, but material culture remains a fundamental source of information. In his pioneering volume In Small Things Forgotten (1977), James Deetz…
Water Use in Roman Cities
by Clare Rasmussen The Roman Empire was one of many ancient civilizations that understood the necessity of a water supply system, and they became experts in building large aqueducts and urban water systems. They, along with the Greeks, spread new cultural institutions that required water to be used in ways that went beyond the communal…
Diverging Paths: A Socio-archaeological Investigation of Rural Settlement in Ottoman Palestine and Transjordan
by Lauren Erker Rural life in Jordan during the Ottoman period is a topic that has received little attention from archaeologists. While there is a rich corpus of historical writings on the late Ottoman period due to the Tanzimat reforms, archaeological literature on the subject remains scant. Any tour across the landscape of Jordan will reveal remains…
ICHAJ 15 and the Value of International Collaboration in Cultural Heritage
by Danielle Wolfson I am an emerging professional in cultural heritage, chosen by the United States Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (US/ICOMOS) to participate in their International Exchange Program (IEP), an honor that brought me to Amman for the summer of 2022. At the American Center of Research, I worked on…
Animal Lives at Petra
by Kathryn Grossman I have been in Jordan for two months now, and Tom Parker’s presence is everywhere—in my work, in conversations with colleagues, on the stiff breeze at Petra. Despite twenty years in Near Eastern archaeology, this is my first time working in Jordan; I had just imagined he would be here when I…
Traversing the Landscape
by Amy Karoll I am currently a visiting professor in the Writings Program at New York University-Abu Dhabi and was an NEH Postdoctoral Fellow at the American Center of Research from March to August 2021. I arrived at the American Center in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and fresh from receiving my doctorate in…
Exploring the Political Economy of Cultural Heritage
by Charlotte Vekemans “Heritage is Jordan’s oil.” This statement, which I heard from heritage experts, development workers, and Jordanian government officials, has come to be the most captivating way for me to summarize my PhD project. With the support of a Harrell Family Fellowship granted by the American Center of Research, I conducted field research…
Archaeology in Jordan and the Pandemic
by Jack Green, Ph.D. In November 2020, ACOR published the second volume of Archaeology in Jordan (AIJ), an open-access biennial that continues the “Archaeology in Jordan Newsletter,” which appeared in the American Journal of Archaeology from 1991 to 2016. AIJ does not provide a full representation of all the archaeological fieldwork and research conducted in the…
أرشيف أكور: مصدر مرئي جديد للتدريس في المدارس عن تاريخ الأردن والمنطقة
“ACOR Photo Archive: A New Visual Resource for Middle and High School Teaching about Jordan and the Region. ” This Arabic presentation was delivered as part of the Jordan School Librarians Conference in November 2019 to introduce the ACOR Photo Archive project and its work to preserve endangered photographic heritage from Jordan and the region….
The ACOR Photo Archive: Mobilizing Digital Tools to Preserve Visual Heritage
للتنويه: هنا يتوفر محاضرة توجيهية عن أرشيف أكور باللغة العربية ACOR Proudly Presents:“The ACOR Photo Archive: Mobilizing Digital Tools to Preserve Visual Heritage”An ACOR Public Lecture by Dr. Jack Green and Jessica Holland on February 11, 2020 About the Lecture: The ACOR Photo Archive contains rich collections of tens of thousands of photographs, but its…
Cosmetic Adornment during the Iron Age in the Southern Levant
A Pierre and Patricia Bikai Fellowship at ACOR was awarded to Betty Adams for spring 2020. She is a graduate student in Near Eastern Archaeology at La Sierra University in Riverside, California, where her studies have concentrated on the chemistry and composition of ancient makeup as represented by traces remaining on artifacts from ancient Jordan….
Religious Change in Southern Jordan in the Byzantine and Islamic Periods
ACOR Proudly Presents: “Religious Change in Southern Jordan in the Byzantine and Islamic Periods” An ACOR Public Lecture by Dr. Robert Schick on December 10, 2019 About the Lecture: In the first centuries AD, everybody in the area of Jordan south of the Wadi Mujib were devotees of some Nabataean or Roman religion or another….