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.