Amman and Jerusalem

Since the end of the archaeological excavation at Jurash, Saudi Arabia at the end of August, I have been spending time at the American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR) in Amman, Jordan and the Albright Institute in Jerusalem.

I did a bit of work on a number of projects, including the field report of my excavation trench at Jurash. As German language practise, I translated two articles from German into English written a century ago about the Muslim cemeteries in Jerusalem and Palestinian customs. This is in continuation of three century-old German articles about Muslim shrines in Palestine that I translated earlier this year. I do not know yet how I will publish these translations. At ACOR I also proofread the Beginning Arabic for Archaeologists booklet that I worked on in the spring and did some planning for a possible short excavation season at Humayma in southern Jordan in the spring of 2009. Although I spent most of my time in the ACOR library, I did have the chance to make a day-trip with Dino Politis to Ghor al-Safi at the south end of the Dead Sea to see his recent excavations (I had participated in his excavations at Lot’s Cave years ago). I also saw the building of the new Lot’s Cave museum, which should open in a year or so.

I also did some work on the catalogue of Arabic inscriptions in the Islamic Museum that is part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which will be my research project starting in October. The situation on the compound is a bit less tense than has been the case in recent years. In one positive development, after blocking it for years, the Israeli have finally allowed some sophisticated equipment for manuscript conservation to be brought onto the compound. So hopefully the manuscript conservation laboratory housed in the Madrasah al-Ashrafiyah can now get started on conserving the major collection of Quran manuscripts and other documents in the Islamic Museum that are in dire need of attention.

I will be leaving Amman later today (September 18) on a trip to India, which will take me to Delhi and Hyderabad, before I return to start my upcoming National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship at the Albright Institute on October 1.