Umm el-Jimal

INTRODUCTION TO PROPOSED UMM EL-JIMAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK

APPROACH TO PARK DEVELOPMENT

Roman and Byzantine Umm el-Jimal is an amazingly well preserved set of ruins that need no visual enhancement to be better appreciated or understood. The beauty of the site inheres in the combination of spectacular wall elevations and cascades of collapsed masonry. Thus the approach is to leave things as much as possible as they are, with criteria for site alteration limited to visitor safety, comfort and comprehension:

The site tour is designed to lead people through the most accessible and most interesting buildings, and also to steer them away from other areas of the site where unstable conditions make entry very dangerous. Paths have already been cleared along the route, and signage is proposed to enhance intelligible examination of the ruins.

Museum / Visitor Center. The design of the center within House 119 satisfies these goals:

Consolidation and reconstruction. We recommend that only the buildings on the site tours receive intervention with the main goal the safety of the visitors. Only in rare cases where replacement of collapsed masonry is obvious and promises great enhancement is reconstruction recommended. Otherwise, all intervention is to be consolidation of unstable but still-standing architecture. Reassembly of the Praetorium is a special case because of the immanent collapse of its most spectacular facade.

Note: A more elaborate description of the approach to site development at Umm el-Jimal is given by B. de Vries.