Amman and Jerusalem September 27-29

I flew from Hyderabad back to Amman on September 27. I then spent a couple of days at the American Center of Oriental Research. Among other things I proofread the Arabic for Archaeologists booklet that I worked on in the spring.

Then on September 29 I traveled to Jerusalem. There was an unusally large number of tourists in line – a couple hundred from Indonesia, China and Korea – so that it took six hours to cross, rather than the more typical four hours.

My several months of travel are now at an end, as I start a new six-month National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship at the Albright Institute to produce a catalogue of Arabic inscriptions in the Islamic Museum that is part of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

I arrived in Jerusalem in time for the end of Ramadan at sunset, which also coincides this year with the start of Jewish New Year. There was a parade of Palestinian bagpipe players along the street outside the Albright Institute to mark the occasion.