January 2013: Ambassador Stuart Jones visits to celebrate the completion of preservation fieldwork of House XVII-XVIII
On January 21, 2013, US Ambassador Stuart Jones returned to Umm el-Jimal to celebrate the completion of preservation field work. The ambassador and a crowd of more than 50 people - staff from the US embassy, local community, Department of Antiquities, ACOR, the Jordan academic community, various Jordanian high officials, and personal friends from Amman – toured the completed Umm el-Jimal House XVII-XVIII.
The ambassador and a similar group toured the site in April 2012. Professor Bert de Vries, Umm el-Jimal Project Director, views these two tours as bookends to the project. Professor de Vries writes: “In making the exact same tour twice, we stood in a once rubble filled but now open courtyard; we saw a once tottering double window standing buttressed and stable; we passed through the beautiful House XVIII exit hall – the one with the double stone door – which in April was blocked to the ceiling; a stable too dangerous to enter was now toured under a repaired roof. Everywhere fine construction details, once hidden from view, were now exposed to display the cleverness of their builders.”
Read more and view photos from the ambassador’s visit at Professor de Vries’s Umm el-Jimal blog.
February - June 2012: Preservation of House XVII-XVIII continues at Umm el-Jimal
The project to preserve House XVII-XVIII continues as a field work and publication season from March to the end of June.
From March 28 - May 1 and May 20 - June 24, I will be working in partnership with Abdul Qader al-Husan, director of the Mafraq Regional Office of the Department of Antiquities, and Muaffaq Hazza, local UJ Project archaeologist, to carry out the preservation plans prepared during the January Field School. In June the on-site work will conclude with a publication workshop attended by me, Muaffaq Hazza, Paul Christians and Jeff DeKock, both of Open Hand Studios.
The following seven images and texts feature the funding and support organizations, the progress of the work, and the plans for its completion from late March to the end of June.
Bert de Vries
