American Center of Research in Amman – serie

This publication concerns the archaeological excavations of the Ridge Church and the Blue Chapel at Petra (Jordan). It represents the culmination of many years of work carried out by the American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR), in coordination with the Department of Antiquities of Jordan and the Petra Park. This work was supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and many others, including members of the local communities.

The Petra Papyri series is the scholarly publication meticulously documenting, translating and interpreting the information recovered from approximately 140 carbonized papyrus scrolls found in 1992 during ACOR's excavation of the Petra Church. The scrolls had been carbonized in a fire and were thus preserved, although many scrolls were in a destroyed condition and could not be read. Such discoveries are exceedingly rare.The Petra papyri texts are often dated ca. 537 to 594 thanks to the law promulgated by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian to place the date at the beginning and end of a document. The scrolls vary in size from a single sheet as P. Petra 6 (L. 28 cm), a list of stolen goods, to the exceptionally long P. Petra 2 (L. 8.5 m), which is an agreement concerned with inherited property. These documents deal with real estate transactions, disputes, contracts, divisions of property, marriages, dowries, and inheritance. The central figures of the archive are Theodoros, son of Obodianos, who was deacon and later archdeacon in the church, and his extended family and peers. The language indicates that the people in Petra at this time were speaking an early form of Arabic.A team of papyrologists from Finland conserved these sixth century texts from 1994 to 1995 at ACOR in Amman as part of a major effort headed by Jaakko Frösén. The original fragments were placed on Japanese rice paper and sandwiched between glass plates so that they could be preserved and examined for study. Some scrolls are written on both sides (and they could not be mounted on paper) but most are single-sided. As noted, many texts have been translated and published in The Petra Papyri series (Amman: ACOR) by scholars from Finland and the University of Michigan. Some documents are exhibited at the Jordan Museum in Amman.

Within this thorough guide, the reader will find descriptions and studies of the ancient wonders of Madaba, from its Byzantine cathedral to its acropolis, which contains remains from the Early Bronze Age.In 1993, Patrica M. Bikai and Thomas A. Dailey, with help from ACOR, undertook an archaeological survey of Madaba: here, their findings are published and analysed. They sought to study and preserve the long cultural tradition of Madaba, and to emphasize the importance of this goal to the public.This well-illustrated volume covers not only the place of Madaba within historical narratives, but also the evidence of occupational history, antiquities, and vernacular architecture through the careful study of surface pottery, survey of archaeological sites, and mapping of ancient Madaba (map included).

An excellent overview, written in accessible language, of the history of humanity on the Madaba plains of Jordan, an area known in the past as the land of the Ammonites.

The Temple of Hercules Project, which ACOR began in 1990, involved the excavation and partial reconstruction of the Roman temple, one of the principal monuments of Amman during the classical period. The project was funded by USAID and carried out by ACOR and the Department of Antiquities of Jordan.The first volume documented the architectural elements of the temple. This volume presents the results of nine seasons of archaeological excavations conducted at the temple and its surrounding temenos between July 1990 and April 1993.Items unearthed in the excavations of the site, such as coins, amphora, pottery, ceramic lamps, figurines and other miscellaneous items are discussed with pictures and drawings to illustrate items of note.

The evocative Citadel of Mukawer, or Machaerus to the ancient world, is a site that is redolent with the narrative and wonder of history and faith. It is one of those very special places that seem to exist beyond time and in its own space. It sits in a deeply imbued landscape that brings to life the resting chronicle of belief, devotion and struggle. This volume makes the history and story of Machaerus, today an abandoned hilltop site with its faded but once-magnificent fortified royal palace, more accessible to the public. The site occupies a strategic point overlooking the Dead Sea in the modern Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It has been known in recent generations as Qalat Mishnaqa, but according to the Roman historian Flavius Josephus (AJ XVIII 5, 2), one of the holiest men of the biblical era, the Prophet Yahya ibn Zakariyya (John the Baptist), was imprisoned and executed at Machaerus by the Jewish Tetrarch Herod Antipas almost 2,000 years ago. Recent archaeological excavations and research now tell the story of this magnificent site.

The evocative Citadel of Mukawer, or Machaerus to the ancient world, is a site that is redolent with the narrative and wonder of history and faith. It is one of those very special places that seem to exist beyond time and in its own space. It sits in a deeply imbued landscape that brings to life the resting chronicle of belief, devotion and struggle. This volume makes the history and story of Machaerus, today an abandoned hilltop site with its faded but once-magnificent fortified royal palace, more accessible to the public. The site occupies a strategic point overlooking the Dead Sea in the modern Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It has been known in recent generations as Qalat Mishnaqa, but according to the Roman historian Flavius Josephus (AJ XVIII 5, 2), one of the holiest men of the biblical era, the Prophet Yahya ibn Zakariyya (John the Baptist), was imprisoned and executed at Machaerus by the Jewish Tetrarch Herod Antipas almost 2,000 years ago. Recent archaeological excavations and research now tell the story of this magnificent site.

In 1991, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Jordan, the American Center of Research (then known as the American Center of Oriental Research), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) initiated a project to create an archaeological park in the heart of Madaba. The park includes a well-preserved stretch of what appears to be a Late Roman street and buildings from the Roman, Byzantine, and Early and Late Islamic periods. The excavations also yielded finds from the Middle Islamic period as well as the Modern period. The goals of the park project were to explore the history of Madaba, to protect its archaeological heritage from destruction, and to revitalize downtown Madaba. This volume—more than 450 pages and well illustrated—presents the results of the excavations of 1992 to 1993, with brief coverage of the follow-up excavations in 1994 and 1995-1996, focusing on the western half of the Madaba Archaeological Park, around the Burnt Palace and the Roman Street to its south. Pierre Bikai, Ghazi Bisheh, Karen Britt, Alysia Fischer, Debra Foran, Jaakko Frösén, James Pokines, Robert Schick and Thomas Maria Weber-Karyotakis contributed to the book.

Volume Two of Petra's Temple of the Winged Lions discusses sculpture, ceramics, an incense burner, lamps, coins, glass, ground stone tools, worked bone, metalwork, personal ornaments and cosmetic implements, inscriptions, faunal remains, invertebrates, and human remains. It also describes visitor surveys and an on-site educational programme for children.Petra's Temple of the Winged Lions, named for its distinctive column capitals, has been excavated and conserved for 40 years. These two volumes see a great deal of data and syntheses published for the first time; they bring to publication the results of two long-term archaeological projects in the ancient Nabataean heartland.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan occupies the geographical and cultural crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, traversed and settled over the millennia by societies that have left archaeological traces across the landscape. The Story of the Land of Jordan is an account of the country's immense history for the first time in English from the perspective of a Jordanian, one of the region's most respected archaeologists, Zeidan Kafafi. Thoroughly referenced and illustrated, the volume first grounds the reader in Jordan's geography and environment and a history of its archaeology. Then it delves into sites that preserve the story of the country's earliest hunter-gatherer communities of the Lower Palaeolithic, through the development of agricultural communities and towns during the Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic, and into the urbanization that marked the Chalcolithic period and the development of Bronze Age city-states, ultimately culminating in the Iron Age kingdoms of Ammon, Moab, and Edom and the arrival of the Persians. Includes illustrations, maps, tables, bibliography, indices.

Megalithic Jordan is a delightful field guide to where to find and how to get to the major megalithic monuments in Jordan, also covering other related stone constructions such as stone alignments, stone circles, cairns, cists, cup holes and rock-cut tombs. Dolmens and standing stones from human prehistory are widely distributed in Jordan. Megalithic (Greek for large stone) architecture has been found in large areas of the Middle East. While the guide does not claim to exhaustively cover every stone monument in Jordan, it is an accessible introductory work on the subject and discusses with candour the problem of preserving the megalithic monuments from destruction resulting from urban expansion or human malfeasance. The author, Gajus Scheltema, was the Dutch Ambassador to the Kingdom of Jordan between 2003 and 2007. While living in Jordan Scheltema became interested in the dolmens and standing stones in the landscape and took on the task of reviewing existing scholarship on these stones and document as many as he could possibly find. His wish to discover these sites became a desire to help to protect them.The book contains an important bibliography.

Arabic for Archaeologists is a pocket-sized booklet for work in the field. It contains essential words and phrases, each presented in English, Arabic transliteration and Arabic text. The booklet was prepared by Robert Schick in 2009 as a revised version of Paul Lapp’s original, previous revisions having been made by Nancy Lapp in 1971 and 1990. The easy to use pocket-sized booklet (10x16cm) is suitable for work in the field.

The fourth volume in the Petra Papyri series, the scholarly publication meticulously documenting, translating and interpreting the information recovered from approximately 140 carbonized papyrus scrolls found during ACOR's excavation of the Petra Church. The scrolls had been carbonised in a fire and were thus preserved, although many scrolls were in a destroyed condition and could not be read. Such discoveries are exceedingly rare. The Petra papyri texts are dated c. 537 to 594 thanks to the law promulgated by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian to place the date at the beginning and end of a document. The scrolls vary in size from a single sheet such as P. Petra 6 (L. 28 cm), a list of stolen goods, to the exceptionally long P. Petra 2 (L. 8.5 m), which is an agreement concerned with inherited property. These documents deal with real estate transactions, disputes, contracts, divisions of property, marriages, dowries, and inheritance. The central figures of the archive are Theodoros, son of Obodianos, who was deacon and later archdeacon in the church, and his extended family and peers. The language indicates that the people in Petra at this time were speaking an early form of Arabic. A team of papyrologists from Finland conserved these sixth century texts in 1994 and 1995 at ACOR in Amman as part of a major effort headed by Jaakko Frosen. The original fragments were placed on Japanese rice paper and sandwiched between glass plates so that they could be preserved and examined for study. Some scrolls are written on both sides (and they could not be mounted on paper) but most are single-sided. As noted, many texts have been translated and published in The Petra Papyri series (Amman: ACOR) by scholars from Finland and the University of Michigan. Some documents are exhibited at the Jordan Museum in Amman.

The Petra Papyri Volume V (2018) is the final publication of the Petra Papyri Series, Greek language papyrus texts from the sixth century A.D. that were discovered in carbonized condition in Petra in 1992-93. The Petra Papyri series is the scholarly publication meticulously documenting, translating and interpreting the information recovered from approximately 140 carbonized papyrus scrolls found during ACOR's excavation of the Petra Church. The scrolls had been carbonised in a fire and were thus preserved, although many scrolls were in a destroyed condition and could not be read. Such discoveries are exceedingly rare. The Petra papyri texts are often dated c. 537 to 594 thanks to the law promulgated by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian to place the date at the beginning and end of a document. The scrolls vary in size from a single sheet such as P. Petra 6 (L. 28 cm), a list of stolen goods, to the exceptionally long P. Petra 2 (L. 8.5 m), which is an agreement concerned with inherited property. These documents deal with real estate transactions, disputes, contracts, divisions of property, marriages, dowries, and inheritance. The central figures of the archive are Theodoros, son of Obodianos, who was deacon and later archdeacon in the church, and his extended family and peers. The language indicates that the people in Petra at this time were speaking an early form of Arabic. A team of papyrologists from Finland conserved these sixth century texts in 1994 and 1995 at ACOR in Amman as part of a major effort headed by Jaakko Frosen. The original fragments were placed on Japanese rice paper and sandwiched between glass plates so that they could be preserved and examined for study. Some scrolls are written on both sides (and they could not be mounted on paper) but most are single-sided. As noted, many texts have been translated and published in The Petra Papyri series (Amman: ACOR) by scholars from Finland and the University of Michigan. Some documents are exhibited at the Jordan Museum in Amman.

This substantial volume details Jordan's rich heritage in Roman, byzantine and Umayyad mosaics. The book contains 824 illustrations, including aerial views of many of the sites and plans of most of the structures which have mosaics; over 300 of its pages are in full colour.

The third volume in the Petra Papyri series, the scholarly publication meticulously documenting, translating and interpreting the information recovered from approximately 140 carbonized papyrus scrolls found during ACOR's excavation of the Petra Church. The scrolls had been carbonised in a fire and were thus preserved, although many scrolls were in a destroyed condition and could not be read. Such discoveries are exceedingly rare. The Petra papyri texts are dated c. 537 to 594 thanks to the law promulgated by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian to place the date at the beginning and end of a document. The scrolls vary in size from a single sheet such as P. Petra 6 (L. 28 cm), a list of stolen goods, to the exceptionally long P. Petra 2 (L. 8.5 m), which is an agreement concerned with inherited property. These documents deal with real estate transactions, disputes, contracts, divisions of property, marriages, dowries, and inheritance. The central figures of the archive are Theodoros, son of Obodianos, who was deacon and later archdeacon in the church, and his extended family and peers. The language indicates that the people in Petra at this time were speaking an early form of Arabic. A team of papyrologists from Finland conserved these sixth century texts in 1994 and 1995 at ACOR in Amman as part of a major effort headed by Jaakko Frosen. The original fragments were placed on Japanese rice paper and sandwiched between glass plates so that they could be preserved and examined for study. Some scrolls are written on both sides (and they could not be mounted on paper) but most are single-sided. As noted, many texts have been translated and published in The Petra Papyri series (Amman: ACOR) by scholars from Finland and the University of Michigan. Some documents are exhibited at the Jordan Museum in Amman.