Riga April 13-15

I took a 1:30 am flight from Amman to Riga, Latvia. It turns out that Air Baltic recently started flights twice a week between Riga and Amman, at a price substantially lower than any other flights to Europe. I was on my way to Warsaw, and having never been in the Baltic region before, I decided to spend three days in Riga, before my onward flight. 
 
The flight was less than half full, so I was able to get some sleep stretched over three seats, before the flight arrived in Riga at 6:00 am.

I took a cheap minivan bus to the city center, a travel option that I have not seen mentioned on any Riga tourism website; curiously I was the only man among the several dozens of women passengers who got on and off the bus on their way to their early morning work.


I checked into a nice hotel in the center of the historic district and then walked around the city center. I went to an interesting Central Market for produce housed in a row of huge halls, originally built as hangers for zeppelins.

One of the market halls

Also in the city center there is an amusement park sacrilegiously close to the main Orthodox cathedral of the city.

The amusement park and cathedral

That evening I went to the Latvian National Opera for a performance of Lady of the Camellias, a new ballet by Tiit Harm, set to music by Franz Liszt.

The next day, April 14, I did further sight-seeing in Riga and went to the rather small National Museum of Art. The city center has a historic core with lovely buildings and there are a few blocks of Art Nouveau style buildings to the north.

Some Art Nouveau buildings

One building that served as the former US embassy has a plaque commemorating future president John Kennedy’s stay there on a student summer trip in 1939.

The former US embassy with the JFK plaque to the center right

But outside of the city center the architecture turns run-down pretty fast. One particularly grim neighborhood is the former Jewish part of town, whose population was killed off quickly at the start of the Second World War.

Riga’s holocaust memorial

That second evening I attended a performance at the Latvian National Opera of the ballet A Mid Summer Nights Dream by Felix Mendelssohn.

The next day April 15 I spent part of the day doing more sight-seeing in Riga, but while there were still plenty of other things to see, I was not in the mood for such museums as the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia (World War Two and the Soviet Period). I instead  spent the bulk of the day doing some final revisions to Gustaf Dalman’s Palestinian Customs volume. It was mostly sunny during my stay, but spring was just starting, and overnight lows were still dropping to around freezing.

One puzzle in the city was the obscure markers for the men’s and women’s public restrooms.

The markers for the men’s and women’s restrooms

That evening I attended a performance at the Latvian National Opera of the opera Turandot by Puccini. So I got my fill of high culture, with three consecutive evening performances of top notch quality.

The Latvian National Opera building

Amman and Aqaba March 31-April 12

On the afternoon of March 31, I moved out of ACOR because the building was going to fill up beyond capacity the next day with a large group of graduate students from Belgium for a couple-week study program. I went to stay with Isabelle Rubin, an old friend and fellow participant in a number of excavation projects over the years, including my short season at Humayma in the summer of 2009.

Most days I went to ACOR to work in the library. I wound up work on the Madaba Archaeological Park, putting the records back in storage until I return in the fall. One day I met Ghazi Bisheh, the excavator of the Madaba Archaeological Park in 1992-1993, to look at his slides of the excavation, which he only recently mentioned that he had.

I also helped proofread Dino Politis’s report of his Deir ‘Ayn ‘Abata (Lot’s Cave) excavation report; Isabelle has been doing the page layout. I also finished my revisions of Gustaf Dalman’s first volume of Palestinian Customs. I also mostly finished up my entries for the Metropolitan Museum exhibit. Unfortunately, my permission to look at some of the objects did not come through, so that loose end will have to wait until I return in August.

I also did some work on my Humayma reports. I needed to check a few details for some pieces of marble from the excavations in storage in the Department of Antiquities office in Aqaba, so on April 9 I took an evening bus to Aqaba, arriving in a most unusual heavy rainstorm. The next day, April 10, I spent a couple of hours working in the museum in Aqaba. Unfortunately the person in charge of the storerooms was on vacation that week, so I could not see all of the marble pieces I needed to check, but my tight schedule did not permit me to go to Aqaba any other time. Finishing up that task will also have to wait until I return to Jordan in August.

One of the marble pieces from my excavations at Humayma

That afternoon I walked around and saw the archaeological sites in Aqaba once again, including the possible earliest known church building. The excavator, Tom Parker, has asked me to write a chapter about the identification of the building as a church.

The possible earliest known church in Aqaba

The next morning, April 11, I took a bus to Ghor al-Safi, to met Dino Politis at the Lot’s Cave museum, which he has been spending years getting set up. The museum is close to opening; it will be officially called the Museum at the Lowest Place on Earth. Also at the museum that day was Yiannis Meimaris, who was looking at some of the Greek tombstone inscriptions from Dino’s excavations that he has been publishing.

Yiannis Meimaris in the Lot’s Cave museum storeroom

That afternoon I returned to Amman and stayed once again at Isabelle’s place.

 The next day, April 12, was a major event at the new National Museum in Amman, sponsored by the Department of Antiquities to formally launch their Mega Jordan data base of archaeological sites. The database is better than anything else anywhere in the world, so Jordan is a world-leader in this field.

That day was the end of my current stay in Jordan, and that evening I went to the airport for my flight. I had overstayed my three-month tourist visa by a couple of weeks, but paying the fine at the airport was an easy solution to the problem.

Amman March 8-March 30

After finishing the intensive work on the plan of the Madaba Archaeological Park in the first part of March, I continued at ACOR for the rest of the month.  I did some further work on the Madaba Archaeological Park reports and worked with two American volunteers who had been helping out with sorting through the Madaba pottery for a few hours each week since mid-February. I also did some work on my Humayma excavation reports and continued to revise Nadia Sukhtian’s translation of Gustaf Dalman’s first volume about Palestinian customs. I also proofread a forthcoming issue of the Jordan Journal for History and Archaeology.

But my main work for the second half of March was to write a number of entries for an upcoming exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York on Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition (7th-9th Centuries). I was assigned to write two essays about mosaics and inscribed objects along with entries for a number of mosaic inscriptions, lamps and other objects; I had a total of 4000 words to write. Most of the objects that I was assigned come from Jordan, so I was already familiar with them. Several of the objects are on display in the archaeological museum in the Amman Citadel, so one day I went to look at them there. As it turned out, there was more involved with some of the objects than I had thought and so I needed to see the objects outside of their museum display cases. But to do that I needed to apply for formal permission from the director of the Department of Antiquities, which unfortunately was delayed.

The inadequate view of one of the pots I am writing an entry for on display in the Amman Citadel Museum

Among social events, on March 16 I attended a public lecture at ACOR by Dino Politis on his excavations in Ghor al-Safi, in which I have participated over the years. His lecture was followed by a reception at the British Institute. Also attending was Isabelle Rubin, another long-term participant in Dino’s excavation projects.

Isabelle Rubin, Dino Politis and me at the British Institute reception

On March 26 I attended an event in Jerash sponsored by the Department of Antiquities about new techniques in 3D mapping in which some Italians presented their work to 3D map the south theater in Jerash. After a lunch we saw their equipment in operation in the south theater. I took advantage of the opportunity to look at one of the lamps I am writing an entry for that is in the Jerash archaeology museum.

The 3D surveying gizmo in the Jerash south theater

Amman February 16-March 7

During the second half of February and into early March, I worked single-mindedly with Qutaiba Dasouqi, a surveyor from the Department of Antiquities, to produce an overall plan of the western part of the Madaba Archaeological Park. During the original excavations in 1992 and 1993 carefully stone by stone plans had been produced of the area that was excavated, but no plan was produced that showed either the further excavation areas of the Department of Antiquities in 1995 and 1996 or of the full extent of the park.

We spent six days at the site in Madaba. Qutaiba worked with an electronic distance measurer / total station to take accurate measurements of the park, with the assistance of Musa, a workman from the Madaba office of the Department of Antiquities.

Qutaiba surveying the site

While Qutaiba was surveying the site, I took lots of photographs of the site and produced an inventory of the architectural pieces scattered around the site.

A stone with two crosses

One day Qutaiba used a boom to take aerial shots of the site. He had a camera that was set to take a shot every few seconds as he and Musa moved the boom around the site. It was very interesting to see how Qutaiba managed that work.

Qutaiba and Musa holding the boom

The view from the top of the boom

After we returned to ACOR each day, Qutaiba stayed on late into the evening processing each day’s data, and after we were done with our days at the site, I continued to work on the plan with Qutaiba in the ACOR library for a further two weeks, including weekends. Amazingly Qutaiba even stayed up all night twice to work on the plan. The twenty consecutive days of full time work that we spent on the plan marks the most intensive period of non-stop work on a single project since one especially productive phase of my PhD dissertation writing back in 1987.

Qutaiba and I in the ACOR library working on the plan

The plan

Amman January 22-February 15

Back in Jordan, I spent the following weeks at the American Center of Oriental Research in Amman, working on my various research projects. In particular I worked on finalizing my reports for my excavations at the site of Humayma and continued to revise Nadia Sukhtian’s draft English translation of Gustaf Dalman’s first volume about Palestinian customs. I also worked on a draft of a major grant application that would bring me to the University of Mainz in Germany in 2012-2014 to study early Christianity in Jordan. For the month of February I switched over to doing further work on the final report of the Madaba Archaeological Park that I had worked on for six months in 2010.

Among the special events during the month was a public lecture at ACOR on February 1 by Balazs Major, a research fellow at ACOR from Hungary who spoke about his excavations at the Crusader fortress of Marqab in Syria. During the reception that followed, I joined in a long discussion about the results of Donald Whitcomb’s recently-concluded excavations in at Khirbat al-Mafjar in Jericho; he and the other American staff members had arrived at ACOR earlier in the day.

The group of Islamic period archaeologists discussing the Khirbat al-Mafjar excavations. Back row: Donald Whitcomb and his son John. Front row from left: Zakariya Ben Badhann, Michael Jennings, Ignacio Arce and myself.

On Monday February 7 I joined a group from ACOR for a day trip to visit the ongoing Australian excavations at the site of Pella in the north Jordan Valley. The tour of the site was cut short by a downpour, but there was plenty of time for conversation over lunch afterwards.

The tour of Pella just before the downpour.

Tiberias January 20-21

The last stage of my trip was a visit to Tiberias to see the excavations there. I left the hotel in Jerusalem early in the morning of Thursday January 20 and went to the West Jerusalem bus station for the 6:30 am bus to Tiberias, which arrived at 9:00. Katia Cytryn-Silverman, a professor of archaeology at Hebrew University, met me and took me to see her excavations at the early Islamic site in the south part of Tiberias with the impressive remains of the Friday mosque. Later in the day Nimrod Luz, a professor of cultural geography at Western Galilee College, joined us.

Katia

Katia and Nimrod Luz

In the afternoon Katia dropped me off at the church at Mount Berenice, which overlooks Tiberias.

The church at Mount Berenice and the view of Tiberias

Luckily, a couple of tourists there at the time with a car offered me a lift back to Tiberias, saving me a very long walk. I checked into a hotel on the north side of the city and that evening I walked around a bit.

The following morning, Friday January 21 I returned to Jordan. I went to the bus station for a 10:00 bus to Beth Shean, which arrived at 10:45. Rather than pay for a taxi, I then walked to the Jordan River crossing, which took an hour and fifteen minutes; I had walked that distance a couple of times previously in the late 1990s. The border crossing was routine. On the Jordanian side the only transportation option is a taxi, so I took a taxi to the bus station in Irbid and from there a bus to Amman. I arrived at ACOR in the mid-afternoon, after about five hours of total travel time.

Jerusalem January 14-19

I arrived in Jerusalem at 2:30 on Friday January 14 and checked into the Capitol Hotel on Salah al-Din Street, just down the street from the Albright Institute; there was no room available at the Albright. I went over to the Albright for the 4:00 tea, where I chatted with some of the current resident fellows. I also met Donald Whitcomb and later that evening I went with Donald, his son John, and Michael Jennings, a graduate student at the University of Chicago to a nearby restaurant. We talked about their on-going excavations at the early Islamic palace at Khirbat al-Mafjar in Jericho.

The next day, Saturday January 15, I took it easier. First thing I got a SIM card for Israel and made calls to arrange appointments for the next days. In the afternoon I met Benjamin Dolinka, a former Albright fellow, who has just started working for the Israeli Antiquities Authority. I also met Muhammad Ghosheh, my Palestinian colleague.

The next day, Sunday January 16 I went to the church service at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City. The current pastor is Fred Strikert, formerly at Wartburg College in Waverly. There was an overflow crowd of mostly Americans at the service, including the brother of James Sauer, a former director of ACOR.

Fred Strikert, James Sauer’s brother and me

In the afternoon I went to see Fahmi al-Ansari, who still operates his library in the basement of a building down the street from the Albright. His hopes to move to a better location remain unrealized. I thumbed through recent publications about Jerusalem there. That evening I met Muhammad Ghosheh at the Ambassador Hotel for dinner and discussed our Jerusalem projects. He told me about a recently published album of historic photographs of Jerusalem published in Instabul by an Islamic research foundation (IRCICA) that they sell for the grotesque rip-off price of 1200 $US! Muhammad had a copy that he lent me to take a look at.

The next day, Monday January 17, I went to the Islamic Museum on the al-Aqsa Mosque compound to meet Khader Salameh, the museum director. We spoke about our Arabic inscriptions project. In the afternoon I went to the Albright for 4:00 tea and made arrangements to join tomorrow’s Albright field trip.

On Tuesday January 18 I joined the Albright fellows on their trip to Qumran and then Khirbat al-Mafjar in Jericho. I do not think that I had been to Qumran since 1971. This trip was the most convenient way for me to get to Khirbat al-Mafjar to see the impressive excavation results. Unfortunately, none of the Palestinian participants were at the site that day. It was the same day that the Russian president Medvedev came to Jericho. There were a few banners and flags along the streets, but otherwise his visit did not impinge on ours.

Steven Pfann telling the Albright group about Qumran

Donald Whitcomb showing the Albright group the excavations at Khirbat al-Mafjar

On Wednesday morning January 19 I attended a conference about the Islamization of Palestine held at the Yad Izhak Ben Zvi Institute in West Jerusalem. Unfortunately all of the presentations were in Hebrew so I got very little out of it, although it was a good opportunity to meet people, including ‘Umar ‘Abd Rabbu, one of my former students who gave a presentation about Fatimid Jerusalem. I left at the noon break and walked around the Mamilla cemetery to see what was going on with the construction of the Museum of Tolerance that has destroyed part of the cemetery.

The Mamilla Cemetery with the perimeter fence of the Museum of Tolerance in the right background

I then walked up to the Mount of Olives to look around, and on my way back to the hotel I stopped at the Sahirah Muslim cemetery near Herod’s Gate in order to photograph the grave of ‘Abd Allah Mukhlis, a Palestinian historian of Islamic Jerusalem who died in 1948.

The grave of ‘Abd Allah Mukhlis in the Sahirah cemetery.