Friday, November 30, 2012

Madaba and Amman October 7-15

After the trip to the Kerak Plateau, I spend the next days in Madaba to check some details at the Madaba Archaeological Park for the report that I have been working on. I stayed at a local hotel in Madaba.

I had received a permit from the Department of Antiquities and on my first day, Sunday October 7, I introduced myself to the directors of the Madaba offices of the Department of Antiquities, Ministry of Tourism and the Madaba Mosaics School.

The next day I went to the Madaba Archaeological Park and took some notes at the Church of the Prophet Elias and the Burnt Palace. In particular I took measurements of the density of the tesserae (number of cubes per ten square centimeters) in the various mosaic floors around the site.

The Tyche with 160 mosaic cubes per ten square centimeters

On Tuesday October 9, I came to Amman to attend a day-long conference at the Department of Antiquities about the Umayyad Desert Castles.

On the fourth day, Wednesday October 10, I took further notes at the Archaeological Park, especially checking what the various photographs from the 1992-1993 excavations actually show. The weeds and trash at the site of the Archaeological Park had been removed recently, leaving the site the cleanest I had ever noticed it. A shelter over the Church of the Martyrs is currently under construction. That afternoon I came to Amman and moved back into ACOR.

The shelter at the Church of the Martyrs

Back at ACOR, I worked on a variety of projects to wind things up during the final days of my current stay in Jordan. In response to an email from the Archaeological Survey of India about missing elements of my application for my planned survey of heritage buildings in Bhimunipatnam in February, I worked further on my proposal, but I was unable to get everything in order before a critical application deadline. So it looks doubtful that the project will get a permit this year.

I also proofread the upcoming issue of the Jordan Journal for History and Archaeology and my Masjid al-Aqsa article for Humberto da Silveira’s book. On October 13, Nadia Sukhtian invited Isabelle Rubin and me to her place to discuss work on the Gustaf Dalman translations, and on October 14 I attended a meeting about the UNESCO Baptism Site World Heritage application. On October 15 Mohammad Ghosheh came by to discuss his new book about the Dome of the Rock; we went to a fancy Japanese restaurant and then he took me to the airport for my overnight flight to Frankfurt.

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