We were pleased to welcome at the gala representatives of the Jordanian government and royal family, as well as international diplomats from the United States, South Africa, Greece, and beyond. Rick Spees, Executive Director of CAORC, and ASOR President Susan Ackerman were also in attendance. The diverse range of those who came to celebrate this occasion with us, from Wadi Musa to Washington, D.C., is a testament to the legacy ACOR has built as an international center for research in Jordan. To all those in attendance, as well as those unable to join us for the evening, we extend our utmost gratitude for your support, and we look forward to continuing the many fruitful relationships we have fostered until now.

The evening also served as an opportunity to honor our longest-serving staff member, Mohammad Adawi, also known as Abu Ahmed, who formed an integral part of the ACOR family as our chef for the entirety of our first 50 years in Amman. In 2016, Abu Ahmed was awarded the ASOR Albright Service Award in recognition of his long and outstanding service to ACOR. On the night of the gala, Abu Ahmed marked his retirement from ACOR by cutting our 50^th anniversary cake, capping off an evening of conversation, presentations, and celebration.

On this occasion, we also premiered a short film (featured at the top of this post) showcasing some of ACOR’s many projects, including the Petra Church and the Temple of Winged Lions. Produced especially for ACOR’s 50^th year, this video provides great insight into what ACOR does and how we have evolved over time. We are excited to be able to share the final product with you today, and we extend our thanks to filmmakers Ghassan Salti and Mohammud Ali and former ACOR Development Officer Miriam Saleh for all their hard work producing it. A video clip on USAID SCHEP, implemented by ACOR, was also created for the event by the SCHEP team.

Truly, the past 50 years have been an incredible journey, and one that we look forward to continuing with your support.

By Starling Carter, ACOR Development Assistant

The post ACOR Celebrates its 50th Anniversary in Amman appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

The Jordanian Graduate Student Scholarship (JGSS) was first awarded in 2009.  Students must be enrolled in the first year of an M.A. or Ph.D. program in Jordan in a subject related to cultural heritage. Typically, the applicants apply during their first year of graduate study and the award is to help them with their expenses. The scholarship was created by the Trustees of ACOR to support Jordanian scholarship in heritage and cultural resource management.  It awards $3000 each to four selected Jordanian graduate students every year. From 2009 to 2017, the JGSS has been awarded to 29 promising Jordanian graduate students in the fields of Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, and Epigraphy.

Read about two recent JGSS recipients:

Farah Abed Al-Qader Mohammad Abu Naser is currently a student at the Hashemite University where she is working on her Master’s Degree in Archaeology of Ancient Arab Civilizations. Farah has worked previously at the excavation at Zakouma on documentation of pottery and inscriptions. In addition, she has participated in multiple conferences regarding conservation and tourism. This year, she is conducting research for her project “Damage assessment and 3D reconstruction toward a comprehensive conservation plan at Umm Qais, Jordan.” Umm Qais is an ancient city with a rich history shaped by the Greco-roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires. She notes that this important archaeological site, which has been partially and preliminary conserved, lacks a comprehensive conservation plan. Through assessments and monitoring of the site, Farah hopes to evaluate possible risks and propose a comprehensive plan for the conservation of this unique city. In addition, she will generate a 3D model of the site to assist in further research. Farah hopes that her research will help in conserving this important city which serves as a tourist attraction.

Mais Zaid Abul-Kareem Al-Abbadi is currently a student at the University of Jordan where she studies Archaeology and Tourism. This year, she is conducting research for her project “Classification and typology for lithic tools in Tell Abu as-Sawwan Neolithic Site.” Tell Abu Suwwan is located near Jarash by the old Jarash- Amman highway. Mais has had the opportunity to work on previous excavations at this sight while completing her B.A. and M.A. Her work seeks to examine the stone tool types from the site and their distribution in order to gain an understanding of the activities performed at the site. Mais work seeks to document the stone tools, place them in chronological order, compare them to other sites in the area, evaluate the relationship between the tools and the site, and use this information to assess the site’s function.

Are you interested in becoming a JGSS scholar?     The deadline for all ACOR fellowships is February 1. 

Are you interested in supporting the Jordanian Graduate Student Scholarship? Donate today at acorjordan.org.

The post JGSS – The Jordanian Graduate Student Scholarship appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

A public lecture

ACOR @ 50: Past, Present, and Future

Wednesday February 28, 2018 at 6:00 p.m.

A lecture given by

Dr. Barbara A. Porter, ACOR Director

Reception to Follow

About the Lecture:

To inaugurate the ACOR lecture series for our 50^th anniversary year, the Director Barbara Porter will reflect on past projects, current accomplishments, and future plans. ACOR’s mission has evolved since its inception in spring 1968 but retains as its core mission the intention to advance knowledge of Jordan past and present. The ACOR Library plays a major role in knowledge transfer and the current ACOR Archive Project allows ACOR to share images of Jordan. Many people have been involved in ACOR’s past and acknowledging the role of key figures will be a focus of this talk. Barbara Porter became the fifth long-term director of ACOR in April 2006 when she succeeded Pierre Bikai (1991–2006). Before them ACOR was directed by Jim Sauer (1975–1981), David McCreery (1981–1988), and Bert de Vries (1988—1991), all of whom followed the period of 1968 to 1975 when the center was led by annual professors, who played important roles in establishing ACOR in Jordan and solidifying the ties with Jordan’s Department of Antiquities.

About the Lecturer:

Barbara A. Porter has been the Director of the American Center of Oriental Research in Amman since 2006. She received her A.B. from Bryn Mawr College and her M.A., M. Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University. Her dissertation specialized on cylinder seals from Syria. Part of her childhood was spent in Lebanon, where her interest in the archaeology of the region was fostered. From 1978 to 1986 she was on the curatorial staff of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Egyptian Art and Ancient Near Eastern Art) and in the 1990s taught at New York University. She led several archaeological tours from Algeria to Iran (including Jordan) in the ten years before moving to Amman. Her first year as ACOR Director centered around organizing the 10^th International Conference on the History and Archaeology of Jordan, and she looks forward to the next one (ICHAJ 14) in Florence, Italy in January 2019 (see below).

The post ACOR @ 50: Past, Present, and Future appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

Jordanian women cannot pass their citizenship onto their children and spouses, while Jordanian men can pass theirs onto four wives. This policy leaves the children of Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians with limited access to public education, healthcare, and jobs. Although there are currently about 50 countries with some form of gender-based discrimination in their nationality laws, many states, like Egypt and Morocco, have removed this discrimination over the past 20 years.

Jordan has resisted nationality law reform despite the persistent efforts of Jordanian women campaigning for equal citizenship rights. Nimah Habashneh spearheaded these efforts and founded in 2009 the campaign “My Mother Is Jordanian, and Her Nationality Is a Right for Me” (“أمي أردنية وجنسيتها حق لي”). This campaign emerged out of her blog describing the problems she faced in caring for her children, who could not receive Jordanian citizenship because their father was Moroccan. She created a Facebook page for the group in 2009, which has gradually gained traction, starting with 25 likes in 2009 and moving up to 8,644 likes in 2014; currently, 14,705 people like the page.

Habashneh energetically campaigned for nationality law reform, staging protests and sit-ins, regardless of the weather conditions, in front of parliament, the Prime Ministry, Ministry of Interior, and other government offices. She also scheduled meetings to discuss the issue with Jordanian parliamentarians, international organizations, charities, human rights groups, and the media. Her efforts cultivated a group of women married to non-Jordanians (with husbands from Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, Britain, the Netherlands, and Iraq) who were facing the same problems in raising their children—many of whom did not know they could not pass on their citizenship until their first child’s birth. These women learned of the campaign through their friends, television programs, their children, and social media.

In February 2013, Habashneh’s campaign joined other groups to form the coalition “My Nationality is the Right of My Family.” This coalition consists of 12 civil society organizations and 18 individuals, who advocate for constitutional and legislative amendments that affirm gender equality and enable Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians to pass their nationality on to their spouses and children. One of the coalition’s greatest challenges has been overcoming the government’s argument against reforming the nationality law because many of these women are married to Palestinians (62% according to government estimates). Thus, if women could pass on their citizenship, then government figures suggest that this would nationalize about 222,500 Palestinian children. Officials claim that this nationalization would hurt the Palestinian cause and provide support for right-wing Israeli claims that Jordan “is Palestine” and the “alternative homeland” (الوطن البديل).

In 2014, the coalition, with support from Dr. Mustafa Hamarneh and the Mubadara movement in parliament, advocated fiercely for nationality law reform. However, Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour could only concede a set of privileges (مزية) for the children of Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians and residing in Jordan for at least 5 years. These privileges included free public education and health services, access to more professions, exemptions from work permit fees, and access to driver’s licenses. Prime Minister Ensour promised to provide special identification cards to facilitate these services by June 2015, though he also noted that these cards did not signify a step toward granting these children Jordanian citizenship.

This reform in late 2014 divided the coalition between those who supported the privileges as a step forward and those who viewed them as a barrier to full reform. The vicious political debates that the policy spawned also encouraged many activists to table this topic and focus on other less sensitive reforms promoting women’s rights. The coalition experienced another devastating blow when Habashneh was diagnosed with late-stage cancer and passed away just two months afterward, in early 2015.

Despite these setbacks, many women quickly sought the new id cards for their children, costing some women 140 JD per child in medical tests, transportation, and other related costs. However, the excitement concerning these changes faded as it became increasingly obvious that these cards did not deliver on the government’s promises. Women reported that bank staff, police officers, and cell phone dealers did not consider these cards as a form of identification. Further, some schools and employers did not recognize them, claiming they had not heard of the new policy. Government officials blamed bureaucratic delays in implementing the policy, but activists viewed these delays as intentional government resistance to expanding their rights and as a means of collecting money. Activists also highlighted the harassment they experienced when trying to claim these rights, with government staff chastising them for marrying a non-Jordanian or telling them to go to their husband’s country.

Following Habashneh’s last wish for the campaign to continue, members have persisted in organizing and protesting about the unenforced privileges as well as advocating for full reform of the nationality law. These efforts remain critical for impacted families. For instance, members have described situations where sons have attempted suicide because of the hopelessness they feel, and some mothers have tried to lose their pregnancies to avoid having another child facing these challenges. The situation is less bleak for daughters who can marry Jordanian men and gain citizenship for themselves and their children. However, daughters only receive citizenship if their husband gives it to them. In some cases, husbands decide not to pass their citizenship in order to prevent their wives from working.

Despite the hardships faced by the children of Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians, most of them feel a deep connection to Jordan. They describe themselves as having citizenship in the sense of belonging and devotion to the country (مواطنة), even though they do not have Jordanian nationality in the form of a passport and national number (جنسية). These children are born and spend their entire lives in Jordan, often knowing very little about their father’s country. They speak with a Jordanian accent and view Jordan as their homeland, which they are ready to serve. Regardless of their legal status, they view themselves as Jordanian and hope for a time when they can align their patriotism with their passport.

Learn more about this topic by investigating the links below, some of which primarily include content in Arabic.

Campaign Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/MomJordanian/
Coalition Page: http://irckhf.org/en/project/coalition-my-nationality-right-my-family
Short Video Featuring Affected Children: http://haqqi.info/en/haqqi/media/who-are-we

Lillian Frost was an ACOR-CAORC Fellow, Fall 2017. Before her ACOR fellowship, she had conducted ten months of dissertation research in Jordan with support from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program as well as George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies. She has been to Jordan nine times since first studying Arabic abroad at Yarmouk University in 2009.

Lillian Frost is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in George Washington University’s (GWU) Political Science Department. She has an M.A. in  Political Science from GWU (2016), an M.P.P. in Public Policy from the University of Virginia (2012), and a B.A. in Political and Social Thought as well as Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia. See Lillian Frost’s website for her contact information, CV, and further details on her research.

The post Patriots without Passports appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

Who Were the People in the Neolithic Black Desert?

Wednesday 18 October 2017 at 6:00 pm

Dr. Gary Rollefson

ACOR National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow &
Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Whitman College

Wednesday 18 October 2017 at 6:00 pm

To be followed by a reception

About the lecture

Before 7,000 BC, the people of the Black Desert lived as hunters and gatherers, following herds of gazelle and moving from camp to camp on a frequent basis. By 6,600 BC, it is clear that the population of the area grew suddenly to perhaps ten to twenty times what it was a few hundred years earlier, and the people lived for the first time in sturdy, permanent houses made of stone, staying in them for months at a time. The lecture will look at what caused the change in the populations living in the Black Desert.

About the lecturer

Dr. Gary Rollefson has received numerous NEH and CAORC fellowships over his long academic career that began in Jordan with ACOR almost 40 years ago. He is currently an emeritus professor of Anthropology at Whitman College. He received his Ph.D. (1978) as well as his M.A. (1972) in Anthropology from the University of Arizona, Tucson and he received his B.A. (1965) in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkley. He has held many teaching and lecturing positions and boasts a long list of publications and fieldwork related to the archaeology of Jordan.

To learn more about Dr. Gary Rollefson you can listen to a 2016 lecture by Gary Rollefson about his research in the Black Desert  and read Rollefson’s 2016 blogpost about his research or visit his faculty page at Whitman College.

The post Who Were the People in the Neolithic Black Desert? appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

A New Perspective for the Protection of Threatened Cultural Heritage

Dr. Monther Jamhawi
Director General
Department of Antiquities of Jordan

Tuesday 24 January 2017 at 6:00 p.m.

Reception to Follow

About the Lecturer:

Dr. Monther Jamhawi is the Director General of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan. Before joining the Department, he was a professor of Conservation and Management of Cultural Heritage at the Jordan University of Science and Technology.  Dr. Jamhawi is a widely published author and has served as a consultant expert for many national and regional projects involving heritage, conservation, and tourism development.

Dr. Jamhawi earned a Ph.D. in Cultural Resources Management from Oxford Brookes University (UK); and M.A. in Archaeology from Yarmouk University and a B.A. in Architecture from Yarmouk University.

About the Lecture:

The Department of Antiquities of Jordan was established on 1923 and since that time it has taken the responsibility under the law to excavate, restore, and protect Jordan’s antiquities and to present part of the antiquities as a cultural tourism product. The classical approach and the existing procedures for adopting these responsibilities proved that vandalism and illegal trading and illicit trafficking of objects are still active. International reports show that ISIS is relying on the antiquities trade to raise funds for their terrorist activities. Therefore, the need for a new perspective to change the procedures in saving our heritage has become crucial. This lecture will focus on how heritage could be a tool for the cross cultural dialogue when dealing with Jordan’s many sites and monuments as a human innovation that should be respected and saved.

The post “Protection of Cultural Heritage” an ACOR Lecture on Tuesday 24 January 2017 by Dr. Monther Jamhawi appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

It was nearly a week after the end of the 13th International Conference on the History and Archaeology of Jordan (ICHAJ), and the students who attended were still buzzing. Four Jordanian university students, selected to attend the conference through the USAID Sustainable Cultural Heritage Through Engagement of Local Communities Project (SCHEP), gathered at ACOR to discuss what they had learned and how they could carry their experiences forward.

“I mean, it was just so cool! We used to read [Megan Perry’s articles] all the time in class and then there she was right in front of us!” gushed Aveen Qatameen, a master’s student of physical anthropology at the University of Jordan. Aveen is one of 15 SCHEP Scholars, high achieving students from across Jordan who received scholarships to attend ICHAJ.

Another SCHEP Scholar, Thaer Shawabkeh of Hashemite University, was similarly enthusiastic. “USAID SCHEP gave me the opportunity of a lifetime to attend the conference. I saw the work that was being done at the archaeological sites in Madaba [where I’m from], where I did not know people were still active,” said Thaer. “Being engaged this way with the scientific community gave me the strength and support to continue my course of study without paying attention to the constraints of society.”

The discussion continued along this vein, as the students eagerly chatted about their plans for staying involved in the field. Their ideas varied from pursuing advanced degrees to organizing trash pick-ups at the sites or teaching their friends and families about Jordan’s history. They were excited to showcase their country’s heritage and wanted to make sure their whole communities were involved in this effort.

For USAID SCHEP, conversations like this are exactly what we’re trying to do. USAID SCHEP aims to preserve, manage, and promote cultural heritage resources in Jordan using a unique community-first approach. Part of this mission includes making archaeology and heritage more accessible, to bring those outside the traditional academic circles into the conversation. By engaging the next generation of heritage professionals and advocates, we hope to empower them to be guardians of Jordan’s trove of cultural heritage resources.

In service of this goal, USAID SCHEP also worked to ensure that the site stewards from USAID SCHEP’s five project sites were able to attend the conference as well. Site stewards are another unique aspect of the USAID SCHEP approach. Part local site manager and part community liaison, site stewards are members of the host communities who act as a vital link between USAID SCHEP, the project directors, and the larger host communities. Their presence ensures that the host communities remain the ultimate beneficiaries of USAID SCHEP activities.

Site stewards, along with dozens of other trainees at USAID SCHEP project sites, learn best practices in conservation and cultural resources management (CRM). After training in masonry, surveying, documentation, and other CRM-related vocational skills, they are qualified to work in projects beyond their own site, thereby providing them with a broader range of economic opportunities.

Attending ICHAJ gave the site stewards the opportunity to augment those skills by learning from leading CRM experts. Eman Abdesalaam, site steward for the Temple of the Winged Lions in Petra who also serves as the project’s documentation specialist, was particularly excited to attend a workshop on documentation. “It’s so important for my work for me to attend,” said Eman. “I need to see how everyone does this work, not just the people working on our project.” Eman is a perfect example of what USAID SCHEP seeks to achieve in host communities—a sense of ownership over cultural heritage and a passion for conserving sites and sharing their stories with the world.

Eman also served as an ambassador of the USAID SCHEP model to the rest of the conference. She gave a presentation on her work with USAID SCHEP and Sela, the local non-profit company that she and fellow site steward Ahmad Mowasa founded in July 2015 along with other members of the Temple of the Winged Lions team. Sela for Vocational Training and Protection of Cultural Heritage specializes in administering and managing cultural heritage preservation training programs, as well as providing professional development opportunities in site conservation, restoration, and maintenance. Eman shared the stage at ICHAJ with some of the leading voices in archaeology, including the project directors of all five USAID SCHEP sites, who presented on their work integrating community engagement with academic research.

To ensure that all attendees could understand and appreciate the values of these lectures, USAID SCHEP sponsored simultaneous translation services in both English and Arabic. Breaking down language barriers is a vital step to maximizing accessibility and ensuring that all those interested can appreciate and grasp the latest methods in archaeology and cultural resources management.

ICHAJ happens every three years, bringing together academics who have been working on archaeological sites in Jordan for most of their careers. This year, USAID SCHEP was proud to introduce some new faces. Too often archaeology is relegated to classrooms or seasonal digs, rather than an ongoing and inclusive conversation. By bringing in more members of the host communities, USAID SCHEP is helping to ensure that the conservation of these sites is sustainable and ongoing, and not dependent on academic schedules or grant funding. Furthermore, USAID SCHEP is allowing more people to enjoy the truly incredible stories of the people and places that surround Jordan’s past.

SCHEP Scholar Muthana Abu Diab summed it up best. “USAID SCHEP is our umbrella, underneath it we are linked: students, residents, and specialists … It motivated me to know more about the archaeological treasures that we have, and all those waiting to be discovered. Cultural heritage gives me an added self-respect when I see all that I have inherited.”

Written by Sofia Smith, USAID SCHEP Communications Officer

This blog article is not official U.S. Government information and does not necessarily represent the views or positions of the U.S. Agency for International Development or the U.S. Government.

The post USAID SCHEP Brings New Voices to Jordan’s ICHAJ appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

Driving north from Azraq on Jordan’s Highway 5 and turning off onto a dirt track that gradually approaches the region’s looming volcanic mountains, one eventually comes to Wadi Hassan, a picturesque desert watercourse dotted with small seasonal pools. There, surrounded by towering columnar basalt cliffs, the visitor is greeted by an overwhelming sight.

I’m not just speaking of the sheer vastness of the desert or the impressive site of Qasr Usaykhim in the distance, but of the hundreds of ancient rock art panels that cover the wadi’s boulders and cliff faces. Although the landscape offers no trees, no running water, nor barely any grass for the occasional goat to nibble, people have found their way to this little hidden canyon for millennia, leaving their marks and messages on its stones. As a heritage scientist specializing in rock art stability and decay, the fact that people not only explored but thrived in such a harsh environment is both amazing and humbling.

The rock art together with hundreds of so-called Safaitic inscriptions found in this canyon date from the first century B.C. to the third century A.D. Evidence suggests they were created by ancient Bedouin tribes who roamed the black basalt desert that ranges across modern day Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, and Syria. While their nomadic lifestyle left few architectural traces, their art and messages relate important aspects of their daily lives. Hunting scenes, rituals, and images depicting everyday activities provide a living record of once abundant desert animals such as ostriches, ibex, and oryx that are no longer found in the region. What is more, the breadth of style and content suggest everyone from shepherds and hunters to traders and tribal warriors could write their own story on the stones—many artists even signed their work by name.

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 Beyond its fellows, ACOR hosts scores of American and international scholars who are adding new perspectives on Jordan’s rich history. Help ACOR remain a place where scholars like Kaelin can pursue their research in a safe, comfortable, and welcoming environment.

But while the rock art and inscriptions are certainly interesting unto themselves, my purpose in exploring the expansive Wadi Hassan rock art site was to conduct a preliminary assessment of the site’s geologic stability using the Rock Art Stability Index (RASI). Analyzing over three-dozen specific rock decay processes, RASI provides a quantitative assessment of observed data and has been validated and employed widely across the American Southwest and Caribbean where rock art sites are common and preservation concerns a major issue. Through my work, I hope to show that RASI can be a valuable tool for assessing the condition of Jordan’s rich rock art and epigraphic heritage.

RASI is broken into six overarching categories that help determine a panel’s geologic stability:

• Site Setting: assesses the panel’s geologic context (e.g. stone hardness, fissures/cracks, and lithological factors)
• Impending Loss: evaluates the potential of decay in the near future (e.g. undercutting or developing weathering rinds)
• Large Break-Off Events: focus on larger meso-scale decay events (e.g. rock fall or anthropogenic removal)
• Incremental Loss: appraises micro-scale decay and superficial concerns (e.g. granular disintegration or deteriorating rock coatings). Rock decay processes at the cm- and mm- scale are abundant so RASI incorporates double the decay factors in incremental loss than any other category.
• Rock Coatings: addresses natural and anthropogenic rock coatings that accumulate on panel surfaces (e.g. salt efflorescence or graffiti). In many cases, rock coatings can actually serve to stabilize rock art panels.
• Vandalism and Other Issues: a qualitative category that allows researchers to record noteworthy observations related to a site’s preservation

The breadth of stability categories and processes addressed by RASI is its true strength as a research tool—not only does it evaluate the intensity of decay but it also identifies the major drivers of decay. Using RASI, the intensity of individual degradation (or stabilizing) processes is graded separately from 0 to 3, where:

• 0 = non-existent on the panel
• 1 = decay is present but not notably disturbing the rock art
• 2 = decay is obvious and causing major problems
• 3 = decay is dominant on the panel and directly affecting the rock art

The sum of these scores represents a total score for each panel ranging from 0 to 100, with a lower score signifying more stable conditions. For accessibility and interpretation, final score ranges are also given descriptive classifications:

• ≤ 20: Excellent Condition
• 20–29: Good Status
• 30–39: Problem(s) that Could Cause Erosion
• 40–49: Urgent Possibility of Erosion
• 50–59: Great Danger of Erosion
• ≥ 60: Severe Danger of Erosion

At Wadi Hassan, the average RASI score was 46.43, earning it a qualitative designation of having Urgent Possibility of Erosion. Some of the most prevalent decay processes were fissures or cracks in the stones and fissuresol development (dirt and dust exacerbating pre-existing fissures). However, by far, the most extreme threat to the stability of the Wadi Hassan petroglyphs is vandalism. Many of the ancient motifs and engravings have been completely over-written by modern graffiti and inscriptions. This is only a preliminary study—initial assessment was made of just 14 panels—but hopefully further study and analysis will help raise awareness and inspire more research on how to best monitor and preserve Jordan’s remarkable eastern desert rock art sites.

Written by Kaelin M. Groom

Kaelin Groom is a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Dynamics at the University of Arkansas, specializing in heritage science and cultural stone decay, with a special focus on rock art. She is currently conducting her dissertation research on the merits of rapid field assessment in cultural resource management in Petra, Jordan. During the course of her 2016 research as a Sturgis International Fellow in Jordan, she and her husband, Casey Allen (also a 2015–2016 Fulbright Scholar for Jordan), have made frequent use of the ACOR Library and its extensive scholarly collection on Jordan’s rock art and inscriptions. Her research is funded through the University of Arkansas and the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

The post Heritage in Stone—Assessing the Geologic Stability of Jordan’s Rock Art appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

In January 2016, the mastheads of ACOR’s website and blog were updated to feature a new series of evocative images of Jordan’s varied natural and archaeological landscape. These stunning images were taken by photographer Bashar Tabbah, a friend and, as it turns out, neighbor of ACOR who has graciously allowed ACOR to showcase his beautiful artwork.

Bashar is a world traveler, a person enthusiastic about history and archaeology, and a self-taught photographer who is building a name for himself as an artist.

He will soon publish his first book of photographs, A Map and a Lens: Jordan, a Photography and Historical Exploration. The book is based on a project he started in 2013 to capture Jordan’s most fascinating and frequently overlooked archaeological and religious sites. He photographed and researched dozens of sites and wrote short summaries about the archaeology and historical background of each. “This book took 52 Fridays,” said Bashar, “and for a year I would do research and write every evening and then go out every Friday to verify my GPS recordings (of site locations) and take photographs.”

Bashar’s interest in photography started when he was a college student visiting England in 2004 and was given a Fujifilm FinePix S-7000 digital camera as a gift. He started out just snapping photographs for fun but then later joined an online art community through which he was able to submit photographs for critique and feedback, and also get advice on improving his technical command of his camera. At the same time, he gained valuable experience with image editing software packages like Photoshop and has since become quite adept at making the most of such valuable tools in photography.

By day, Bashar is the general manager of the Amman International Hotel , a four-star hotel situated across from Jordan University and just up the road (or across the wadi) from ACOR. As the hotel is owned by the Tabbah family, Bashar has flexibility in managing his time, but he can also never be too far away from his responsibilities, meaning he has to save up his holiday time and earnings to make room for his passion for photography.

The son of a Jordanian father and an English mother, Bashar has a deep love for Jordan’s landscapes and ancient sites. When he was a child, he would accompany his mother on informal tours she led for family and visitors to sites in Jordan and Palestine. He said, “My dual heritage puts me in the perfect position to bridge the gap between east and west. Fluent Arabic and English makes it easier for me to research the sites that I photograph and I feel I can move fluidly in both worlds, whether I am photographing mosques in Turkey or castles in England.”

“At the age of about 25, I realized that even if I couldn’t achieve all my childhood dreams, that with a camera I could bridge the gap and achieve my dreams on my own terms. When I am taking pictures I really feel free, and that feeling of freedom keeps me content.” – Bashar Tabbah

Recently, Bashar has been experimenting with macrophotography—taking close-up photographs of small everyday items. For example, he has a series of photographs of the gears of textile manufacturing equipment that the Tabbah family brought from the UK in the 1960s. For years, the family produced woven cloth for the traditional Arab men’s headgear known as kufiyya or hatta. Sadly, these machines have been sitting idle in the factory in Zarqa for nearly ten years as fashions are now changing and imported Chinese textiles have made the business unprofitable.

Bashar has many other photography projects running and more planned for the future. “I have projects that will keep me busy for the next ten years! There is really no end in sight.” He describes himself as a “semi-professional photographer,” motivated by a love of photography and, as such, really just wants his photographs to be seen and appreciated. His website, A Map and a Lens, hosts his complete catalog of photographs from Jordan and other countries, including the West Bank, Syria, Egypt, and Morocco.

All pictures in this blog post were taken by Bashar Tabbah.

Written by Sarah Harpending

The post The Photographs of Amman Artist Bashar Tabbah appeared first on ACOR Jordan.

The ACOR Video Lecture Series provides stimulating and accessible discussions of new research into Jordan’s past and present, as presented by leading scholars and researchers working in Jordan and neighboring countries. This fourth video in the series, adapted from the March 2016 ACOR public lecture of archaeologists Dr. Achim Lichtenberger and Dr. Rubina Raja, focuses on work done in the Northwest Quarter since 2011, with particular attention to new insights about Gerasa from the Roman period to the Mamluk period.

About the lecture

Since 2011, a Danish-German team has been conducting archaeological research in the Northwest Quarter of ancient Gerasa (modern Jerash). This area, which is the highest within the walled city, has yielded dense settlement stemming from the late Roman period onward. Furthermore, indications of earlier activity in the area have also come to light. This lecture was presented by the project co-directors and it focused on the work done in the Northwest Quarter since 2011, with particular attention to new insights about Gerasa from the Roman period to the Mamluk period.

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About the Lecturers

Achim Lichtenberger is professor of classical archaeology at Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany. He completed his Ph.D. at Tübingen University and his habilitation at Münster University. His research interests are the archaeology and material culture of the Graeco-Roman Near East, iconography, and numismatics. He is speaker of the Center for Mediterranean Studies at Bochum University.

Rubina Raja is professor of classical archaeology at Aarhus University, Denmark, and director of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre of Excellence for Urban Network Evolutions, based at Aarhus University. Her research interests are urban archaeology, architecture, iconography, high-definition archaeology, and material culture of the Mediterranean, in particular the Graeco-Roman Near East.

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