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Living Witnesses of History and Successive Civilizations: Castles in Jordan

Jordan is a fusion of cultures, and its history offers layers of civilizations. Its geographically privileged position has made it a nexus of the Levant, Arabian Peninsula, Asia, and Africa, and this resulted in many of the world’s great civilizations seeking to expand their power in and control over it. Consequently, over the centuries many castles and fortresses have been constructed in Jordan. These structures are believed by some to be the best indications of political situations, economy, social lives, and cultures in every period of time: they were symbols of power and reflections of conflicts, victories, and defeats (Al-Momani 1987). Today, a considerable number of castles in Jordan dating to different historical periods—especially those from the crusader and Islamic periods—are still in good condition and are open to tourists, archaeologists, and researchers. They present an integrated picture of history of the country and the whole region, varying in features and facilities, depending on the place and time in which each was built.

Map of castle locations that are also in the ACOR Digital Archive. The map is available on Google Maps

Crusader castles were built to defend against the most advanced siege techniques of the time. In some cases, halls were surrounded by earthen embankments of great strength to improve defensibility. This can be seen, for instance, at Al Shawbak castle, which was founded on an isolated hill in a watered and settled valley (Kennedy 2001).

Shaubak castle, early 12th century, as seen in 1980–1981. (Linda K. Jacobs collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=221488

Later, when Muslim forces seized power over the region and the situation became more stable, some castles became the residential palaces of rulers or governors, and new ones were constructed to perpetuate the memory and names of their builders with written inscriptions (Al-Momani, 1987. Umayyad caliphs reused some existing castles, including those at Kharana and Muaqqar, as caravan khans. They also used Roman castles at Hallabat and Azraq—and they built new ones, too, such as those at Mushatta and Tuba, which are rare structures that bear witness to the uniqueness of the Umayyad civilization (Ilayan 2003). The function and usage of these desert castles expanded beyond military purposes. Muslim rulers employed these fancily decorated yet forceful structures to show off their power, to monitor transportation routes, to protect trade caravans, and to serve as rest houses (Al-Momani 1987).

Mamluk inscription on a wall of Shaubak Castle, as seen in 1980. (Linda K. Jacobs collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=221471
Mamluk inscription on a wall of Shaubak Castle, as seen in 1999. (Jane Taylor collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=16925
Mamluk inscription on a wall of a Shaubak Castle tower, as seen in 1999. (Barbara A. Porter collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=412672
Shaubak Castle. (Barbara A. Porter collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=412675
The Umayyad palace of Qasr Kharana, 8th century. (Rami Khouri collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=58418
Room with arches in Qasr al-Hallabat, as seen in 2005. (Jane Taylor collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=523
Room with mosaic floor in Qasr al-Hallabat, as seen in 2005. (Jane Taylor collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=515
Detail of the mosaic floor of room 4 in Qasr al-Hallabat showing guineafowl. (Rami Khouri collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=56864

Built by crusaders in the mid-12th century, Kerak Castle is one of the most historically significant sites in Jordan. From its founding into the 20th century, it was an administrative, economic, and defensive center in the southern Transjordan region. After the crusaders lost it in the late 12th century, Ayyubid, Mamluk, and Ottoman rulers used the castle and added more substantial architectural features to its main building (Jordan Times 1989). All of this has made it a “living witness” to each of these successive civilizations.

Kerak Castle (looking south), as seen in 1957. (Paul and Nancy Lapp collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=225109
Kerak Castle viewed from the stairs, as seen in 1979. (Paul and Nancy Lapp collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=225043
Kerak Castle and its steep terrain. (Rami Khouri collection.)
 https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=280669
Kerak Castle dojon (keep) and landscape, as seen in 1967. (Barbara A. Porter collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=475883
Kerak Castle and town, as seen in 1967. (Barbara A. Porter collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=475908
Kerak Castle’s crusader-era chapel, as seen in 1987. (Paul and Nancy Lapp collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=225217

From another period with its own fascinating architecture is Qasr Al-Mushatta, considered to be the largest and most ambitious of the Umayyad palaces in Jordan. Built in the 8th century, the palace is surrounded by a 144 m2 wall with twenty-five semicircular towers. Its stone facade is exquisitely decorated with delicate and varied geometric, faunal, and floral motives carved in relief (UNESCO n.d.). Entering the palace, you witness its spectacular remains, which are a unique example of Islamic architecture, with a most sophisticated and regular plan. And you will wonder how amazing it would have looked if the palace had been completed (Khoury 1988)! For all of these reasons, Qasr Al-Mushatta was inscribed on the World Heritage Tentative List in 2001 and hopefully will soon be named a World Heritage Site.

Decorative stonework on the façade of Qasr al-Mushatta. (Rami Khouri collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=56624
Decorative stonework on the façade of Qasr al-Mushatta. (Rami Khouri collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=56629
Hall leading to the throne room in Qasr al-Mushatta. Because of its three aisles with columns between, the hall is often compared to a basilica. (Rami Khouri collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=69854
Hall leading to the throne room in Qasr al-Mushatta (Rami Khouri collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=69860
Qasr al-Mushatta, as seen in 1987. (Paul and Nancy Lapp collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=102408
Qasr al-Mushatta. (Rami Khouri collection.)
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=291356

Due to the significance and beauty of the historic fortresses in Jordan, immense efforts have been undertaken to preserve, interpret, and present these majestic structures for tourists and the local community. The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, in cooperation with the American Center of Research and other Jordanian and foreign institutions, led projects to conserve the inherited treasures of Jordan’s castles.

In the ACOR Digital Archive, we have astonishing photos of these castles in several collections and spanning many years. They are open access, for all to see, and you are all invited to have a look and discover how these sites had changed over the decades.

خوري، رامي. (1988). القصور الصحراوية. ترجمة: غازي بيشه. الكتبي، ناشرون

المومني، سعد. (1987). القلاع الإسلامية في الأردن: الفترة الأيوبية المملوكية. دار البشير للنشر.

Ilyan, Jamal. 2003. “New ‘System’ of Presentation of Umayyad Desert Castles in Jordan. Integral Museum of Umayyad Civilization.” In ICOMOS 14th General Assembly and Scientific Symposium, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, 27-31 October 2003: Place, Memory, Meaning—Preserving Intangible Values in Monuments and Sites.Victoria Falls: ICOMOS.

Jordan Times. 1989. “More Riches at Kerak Castle.” Jordan Times, 17 May 1989, p. 3

Kennedy, Hugh. 2001. Crusader Castles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

UNESCO. n.d. “Qasr Al-Mushatta.” UNESCO Tentative List.

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Introduction to the Barbara A. Porter Collection 

Dr. Porter in Dougga, Tunisia, near the Arch of Alexander Severus, 1998.
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=468914

Today, Dr. Barbara A. Porter is the ACOR Ambassador, the first and only person to be awarded this title, in honor of her deep commitment to the American Center of Research, where she served as director from 2006 to March 2020.

Haremlik courtyard in the Azem Palace, Damascus, Syria, 1977.
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=430813

By the time she became director, her experience in the region had already stretched back decades, into her childhood. She lived in Lebanon from 1965 to 1970, an experience that greatly influenced her passion for archaeology.

She went on to receive her master’s and doctoral degrees from Columbia University, served as a member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s curatorial staff, and taught at New York University.

In 1977 she was invited to excavate in the Jordan Valley, and during that time she resided at the very center that, almost three decades later, she would guide for fourteen years. Under her leadership, the American Center of Oriental Research (as the American Center of Research was then known) was a beacon of stability and underwent a period of growth that prepared it for the new era of global interconnectivity we experience today. 

One of the many projects of Dr. Porter’s tenure was the ACOR Photo Archive, launched in 2016 with support from a four-year American Overseas Research Centers (AORC) Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Now known as the ACOR Digital Archive, it would come to include among its substantial holdings thousands of photographs taken by Dr. Porter herself and by her parents, Dwight J. and Adele Porter.

Colorful sandstone rock striations in Petra, Jordan.
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=416640

Besides her work in museum galleries, university classrooms, and the American Center, Dr. Porter has led tours throughout the region. Travels have taken her to Jordan, Syria, Bahrain, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Tunisia, Iran, and Libya, and she documented with her camera what she saw. (The proportion of her collection representing each of these countries is represented by the graph below.)

Anatolian Landscape, Turkey, 2006
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=468252
Street vendor cart offering sweet corn in Urfa, Turkey, 2006.
https://acor.digitalrelab.com/?s=file=468406

The subjects encompass not only archaeological sites and objects in museums but also ethnography—the daily modern life going on around the sites and in the cities and towns she visited. Souks and mosques, mosaics and tiles, doorways and columns, food vendors and tourists all attracted her lens. 

The entire Barbara A. Porter collection comprises some 50,000 photographs. These are being digitized and uploaded to the ACOR Digital Archive through yet another AORC Title VI grant, in which metadata for the images is being made available in both English and Arabic.  

In addition to her considerable photographic collection, Dr. Porter has also donated printed materials to the American Center of Research Library. These range from scholarly volumes on Near Eastern, Egyptian, and North African archaeology to tourist brochures covering locations—archaeological and otherwise—in Jordan and elsewhere in the region.  

Books, brochures, and travel guides donated to the American Center of Research by Barbara A. Porter

As ACOR Ambassador, Dr. Barbara A. Porter continues to represent the American Center of Research. And, through her photography, the Barbara A. Porter collection offers glimpses into her lifetime of dedication to Jordan and the interconnected region, past and present.  

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مجموعة صور مشروع استدامة الإرث الثقافي بمشاركة المجتمعات المحلية

مجموعة صور مشروع استدامة الإرث الثقافي بمشاركة المجتمعات المحلية

رسالة من مدير المركز الأمريكي بيرس بول كريسمان ومدير مشروع استدامة الإرث الثقافي بمشاركة المجتمعات المحلية نزار العداربه

ضمن رؤية المركز الأمريكي للأبحاث في حماية الإرث الأثري الأردني، وقع المركز في عام 2014 اتفاقية تعاون مع الوكالة الأمريكية للتنمية الدولية لتنفيذ مشروع جديد ورائد يسعى إلى إدارة الإرث الثقافي بطرق فعالة ومبتكرة. وبناءً على نموذج مبادرة إدارة الموارد الثقافية في معبد الأسود المجنحة/ اكور والتي اعتمدت على اشراك أبناء المجتمعات المحلية في البترا، واستناداً على تجارب مشاريع إدارة الموارد الثقافية الأخرى القائمة في الأردن، قام المركز بتبني هذا النموذج وتطبيقه في مشروع “استدامة الإرث الثقافي بمشاركة المجتمعات المحلية”، حيث شهد المشروع عدة مراحل من التطور للوصول إلى نموذج مثالي مرن يمكن تطبيقه لتحقيق أهداف المشروع. يمكنك الاطلاع على أعمال المشروع خلال سنوات أعماله الأولى 2014-2018 من خلال قراءة كتاب قصة مشروع استدامة الإرث الثقافي بمشاركة المجتمعات المحلية 2014-2018

واليوم وبعد العمل الدؤوب خلال الأعوام 2014-2018 يسرنا أن نعلن عن إطلاق مجموعة صور مشروع “استدامة الإرث الثقافي بمشاركة المجتمعات المحلية” والتي تضم ما يقارب 4710 صورة تعكس أعمال وأنشطة المشروع خلال السنوات الأربع الأولى، تتوفر هذه المجموعة ضمن أرشيف صور المركز الأمريكي للأبحاث وتمتاز بأنها المجموعة الأولى التي تم أرشفتها من صور رقمية وتحمل وصف ثنائي اللغة (العربية والإنجليزية)، فقد حرص فريق العمل على وصف وترجمة كافة البيانات لضمان أن تتوفر هذه المجموعة لأكبر شريحة ممكنة في الأردن والولايات المتحدة الأمريكية والعالم مجاناً

 

عمال محليون يعملون على تجهيز مسار سياحي تفسيري في موقع أم الجمال الأثري، 2017

وفي الحديث عن المشروع، فقد نفذ أعماله في تسع مواقع أثرية ضمن رؤية تشاركية مع المجتمعات المحلية سعى بها إلى تطوير المواقع الأثرية لضمان سهولة وصول الزوار إليها والتعرف على تاريخها، وبالتزامن مع هذه التدخلات، قدم المشروع العديد من الدورات التدريبية النظرية والعملية لأبناء المجتمعات المحلية لضمان إشراكهم في عملية إدارة الموقع على المدى البعيد ورفع مستوى الوعي لديهم بقيمة الموقع سياحياً وأثرياً، كما وقدم المشروع الدعم لتأسيس شركات محلية تعمل على حماية الموقع الأثري وتقدم خدمات سياحية تعزز التجربة السياحية. وعلى مدى سنوات عديدة عمل المشروع مع مؤسسات إدارة مصادر الارث الثقافي والأثري على تطوير السياسات والتعليمات التي من شأنها تحسين إدارة وحماية مصادر الإرث وبصورة لا تتجزأ عن مشاركة أبناء المجتمعات المحلية في هذه العمليات

غور الصافي، رحلة تعريفية لطلبة كلية عمون الجامعية للمواقع الأقل شهرة، 2018

لم يغب عن المشروع اشراك الأطفال والشباب في الأنشطة العملية المصممة لزيادة وعيهم واهتمامهم بالتراث الثقافي، فقد عقد المشروع العديد من الأنشطة التعليمية التوعوية شارك بها آلاف الشباب والأطفال من جميع انحاء المملكة ، شملت الأنشطة ترميم الفخار وتشكيل اللوحات الفسيفسائية والرحلات التعريفية للمواقع الأقل شهرة في الأردن وغيرها الكثير من الأنشطة. فبقدر اهتمامنا بحماية تراثنا وزرع تقدير وتثمين التراث عند أطفالنا والأجيال القادمة، يفخر المشروع بأن يطلق المجموعة الجديدة من الصور التي توثق أعمال المشروع وإنجازاته للأجيال القادمة من الباحثين والمهتمين في حماية التراث الثقافي لتكون مصدراً يُرتكز عليه في أدوارهم المستقبلية

عمان، دورة نظم المعلومات الجغرافية لموظفي دائرة الآثار العامة وسلطة إقليم البترا التنموي السياحي، 2017

ولأن المشروع متجذر بعمله في الأردن وبالقرب من المجتمعات المحلية، فقد وصل إلى ما وراء حدود الأردن، نأمل أن نرى نموذج المشروع والأنشطة والتدخلات التي أحدثها مصدر إلهام ونموذج يحتذى به لمشاريع أخرى في الأردن وخارجه. فقد استخدم المشروع نموذجاً جيداً وقابل للتطبيق في إدارة الارث الثقافي، ويعمل نحو مستقبل تكون فيه المجتمعات المحلية أصحاب مصلحة رئيسيون في اتخاذ القرارات المتعلقة بمواقعهم الأثرية، والمستفيدون الرئيسيون من السياحة على المستوى المحلي ليس على المدى القريب فقط بل للأجيال القادمة أيضاً

Amman, awareness activities at the Children’s Museum Science and Art Festival, 2017.

ولنضع شاهداً على التأثيرات التي أحدثها المشروع فقد حرص المشروع على أن يوفر مجموعة صوره للعامة عبر موقع أرشيف المركز الأمريكي للأبحاث مجاناً وللجميع، فصور هذه المجموعة تعكس ما لا نستطع أن نصفه بكلمات محدودة من أجل إلهام الأفراد بأفكار جديدة في إدارة الإرث الثقافي، فقد ارتكز المشروع على استخدام تقنيات ومنهجيات حفظ وحماية المواقع الأثرية الحديثة في مواقع عمله المختلفة، وفي مواقع فريدة مثل بصيرا وبير مذكور والتي تعد من المواقع الأقل شهرة للجميع

أمناء مواقع المشروع في ورشة عمل وزيارة ميدانية إلى البترا، 2017

تقدم مجموعة صور مشروع “استدامة الإرث الثقافي بمشاركة المجتمعات المحلية” مجموعة متكاملة من الصور التي تعكس التقنيات التي استخدمها المشروع وشركائه في أعمال التنقيب عن المواقع الأثرية وحمايتها وتوثيقها وادارتها لتسهيل وصول الزوار اليها وتقديمها سياحياً

الطفيلة، موقع بصيرا الأثري، بقايا البوابة الخلفية المؤدية من المدينة المسورة إلى الوادي في الأسفل، 2017

من جانب آخر أيضاً تقدم صور مجموعة مشروع “استدامة الإرث الثقافي بمشاركة المجتمعات المحلية” صوراً عديدة تأخذك في جولات افتراضية بالغة الأهمية في ظل الظروف التي فرضتها جائحة كورونا من عدم إمكانية زيارة المواقع والسفر إليها وزيادة استخدام المصادر الرقمية. فهذه المجموعة الرقمية ستوفر للطلبة والباحثين في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية وأوروبا والشرق الأوسط والعالم فرصة التعرف على المواقع التي عمل بها المشروع بدون زيارتها

رحلة تعريفية إلى بير مذكور، 2016

فعلى سبيل المثال فقد استخدم المشروع التصوير بواسطة الطائرة بدون طيار لتوثيق موقع أم الجمال الأثري على سبيل المثال، تُظهر الصورة اجزاء الموقع والمنطقة المحيطة بالإضافة إلى أدلة على أعمال الحفر غير المشروع والنهب والتي قد تكون أقل وضوحًا من الأرض

أم الجمال، صورة جوية للجانب الشرقي لموقع أم الجمال الأثري يظهر في وسط الصورة حصن روماني يعود تاريخ بناءه الى القرن الثالث والرابع، وكذلك تظهر الصورة المناطق الزراعية، 2017

في الصورة أدناه نقدم لك مثالاً على أعمال الحفاظ والحماية في موقع معبد الأسود المجنحة والتي قام بدعمها المشروع (التسلسل الزمني للصور يبدأ من أعلى اليسار إلى أسفل اليمين) أدت هذه الأعمال بأن يصبح الموقع أكثر حماية واستقرار ومجهزاً لاستقبال أمطار الشتاء بسبب وجود نظام لتصريف المياه

 

في وقت زادت به أهمية المواد الرقمية والمصادر الإلكترونية المتاحة للجميع بسبب جائحة كورونا نشكر زملائنا في المركز الأمريكي للأبحاث على منحنا فرصة العمل على تصنيف وأرشفة مجموعة صور المشروع، ونشكر فريق العمل الذي بذل جهداً واضحاً في أرشفة هذه المجموعة رغم التحديات والتغيرات المستمرة، وبالتحديد

أشلي لامب، مؤرشف مجموعة صور المشروع

شذى أبوعبلي، مدير تواصل المشروع

ستارلينغ كارتر، خبير تواصل المشروع

جيسيكا هولاند، مؤرشف المركز الأمريكي للأبحاث

نورا العمري، مساعد مؤرشف في المشروع، تشرين الثاني 2020

خديجة الفقير، مساعد مؤرشف في المشروع، حزيران-أيلول 2020

ولا ننسى أن نتقدم بجزيل الشكر لفريق عمل مشروع “استدامة الإرث الثقافي بمشاركة المجتمعات المحلية” على عمله الدؤوب والمتواصل طوال السنوات الماضية لتحقيق أهداف المشروع، يمكنك التعرف على الفريق الحالي عبر زيارة صفحة الفريق على موقعه الإلكتروني والتعرف على الفريق السابق في كتاب قصة مشروع استدامة الإرث الثقافي بمشاركة المجتمعات المحلية

وفي نهاية الأمر ندعوك إلى زيارة المجموعة الكاملة على موقع أرشيف المركز الأمريكي للأبحاث ولكن قبل هذا يمكنك زيارة معرض الصور الذي أعده فريق عملنا المتخصص والذي يقدم لك لمحة عامة عن المجموعة قد تساعدك في أبحاثك ودراستك المستقبلية، فقد قمنا بتقسيم هذه المجموعة إلى عدم أقسام ومنها: تطوير المواقع الأثرية، بناء القدرات، التوعية، التطوير السياحي، الفعاليات والمؤتمرات والمحاضرات

من الجدير بالذكر أنه في عام 2018 حصل المشروع على فرصة أخرى لتمديد أعماله وبهذا ندعوك إلى متابعتنا في الأشهر القادمة للاطلاع على صوراً أخرى ستضاف إلى هذه المجموعة تعكس أنشطة المشروع في النصف الثاني من تنفيذ أعماله لترى ما أحدثناه من تغيير في منهجيات وطرق العمل عبر مرور الوقت

لمزيد من المعلومات حول المشروع يمكنك زيارة موقع المشروع الإلكتروني عبر الرابط أدناه

acorjordan.org/schep

لمزيد من المعلومات حول المركز الأمريكي للأبحاث يمكنك زيارة

acorjordan.org

أعد المقال: شذى أبوعبلي، ستارلينغ كارتر، جيسكا هولاند، نزار العداربه، هنادي الطاهر، نورين دولي

Nora Al Omari, SCHEP Archival Assistant (from November 2020)

Khadija Al Faqeer, SCHEP Archival Assistant (July – September 2020)

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Announcing the ACOR Digital Archive

Announcing the ACOR Digital Archive:
Developing a Multimedia Teaching and Learning Resource

By Jessica Holland, Archival Projects Consultant. First published January 6, 2021 on ACOR Announcements. Republished as an ACOR Photo Archive photo essay on April 29, 2021.

We are delighted to announce that, based on the success of the ACOR Photo Archive Project to digitize and make available online 30,000 images covering a range of thirteen countries across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the U.S. Department of Education has awarded ACOR an American Overseas Research Center (AORC) Title VI grant for a new project entitled “ACOR Digital Archive: Developing a Multimedia Teaching and Learning Resource.

What will the ACOR Digital Archive include?

The ACOR Digital Archive will make over 18,000 digital objects of interest to students and scholars of the Middle East freely available and will engage 10,000 U.S. educators of diverse backgrounds with archival resources. The project will digitize archival materials of interest stored on legacy media formats, such as Betamax and VHS, and will share these openly online for the first time. Our archives include rare audio and video recordings of lectures stretching back to the 1980s, as well as project documents relating to landmark excavations, such as the Petra Church Project, which will be digitized and made available to all, without charge.

Photographs from countries where U.S. researchers face restrictions on funded travel, such as Syria, Libya, and Tunisia, will be prioritized for digitization to help support scholars unable to conduct their work in person. Many of these photos will come from ACOR Ambassador Barbara A. Porter’s photograph collection. Photos from archaeologist Brian Byrd will also be digitized, including historic action shots of the discovery and removal of the Ain Ghazal statues for conservation and study. By 2024, the ACOR Digital Archive will have made almost 50,000 digital objects available for anyone to search, share, and reuse.

“ACOR offers key resources for the Middle East. Its holdings of visual resources, particularly the photo archive, is a significant resource for scholars worldwide. The proposed project would take advantage of previously and currently funded projects to further disseminate ACORs’ holdings.” 

—Anonymous peer reviewer, 18 May 2020

The ACOR Digital Archive website will be fully accessible in both languages. We will increase the amount of Arabic-language description of our archival materials through the project, responding to a growing demand for MENA materials to be accessible in both English and Arabic. As one of our proposal’s anonymous peer reviewers put it: “[L]anguage learners have a need for high-quality, free content for integration with their courses.” We wholeheartedly concur and look forward to bridging this gap for both second-language speakers and archival users in the region.

Educator Fellowships

Through the expanded project, we will engage new audiences and better serve current users by working with U.S. educators to develop curricular materials (including lectures, lesson plans, syllabi, and interactive media). Our collections—multimedia documentation of the region’s cultural, natural, and material heritage and development—will be made available with corresponding educational resources relevant to subject areas within the humanities and social sciences, as well as subjects with a broad global comparative perspective, such as sustainability, ecology, anthropology, art, tourism, and heritage.

A key component of the project will be the establishment of educator fellowships, which will serve as opportunities for faculty at community colleges, Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to develop teaching resources relevant to their courses based on our archival materials. These practical, freely available curricular materials will be widely circulated within community college and MSI networks.ACOR typically provides resources to more than 13,000 North American, Jordanian, and international researchers and students annually, and with this project’s proposed outreach to 10,000 MSI, community college, and HBCU faculty members, we expect to significantly expand our engagement with U.S. educators, providing long-term benefits for public understanding of the Middle East.

Why are online archives important?

Online archives are essential for researchers focused on the Middle East to continue to advance knowledge and deepen understanding about the region, as access to physical archives may be restricted or unobtainable, especially for U.S. nationals, due to travel prohibitions and funding limitations.

Accommodating both area studies and global education courses

Preserving access to archival materials just one step. Without sustained engagement with institutions that activate these resources, digitization efforts can easily fail to meet their goals of breaking down barriers to information. With interest in the region intensifying, Middle Eastern studies faculty face high demands from their students and from the media for public education on controversial contemporary issues.1 Our digital archive recognizes the need to support both in-depth area-studies education and broad global comparative education programs, providing links between potentially disjointed areas of research. The archive will soon serve as a ready resource for time-constrained instructors to draw from when preparing lectures and other educational materials on critical regional topics, useful in both subject-specific and global studies courses.

Clip from a public lecture at ACOR on February 11, 2020, by Jessica Holland and Dr. Jack Green, in which they discuss lessons learned from our 2016–2020 grant. The past four years of digitization and archival development directly informed the new directions we will be taking with the digital archive project.

“The assertive outreach planned for community colleges and minority serving institutions reflects comprehensive insights into US higher education.” 

—Anonymous peer reviewer, 18 May 2020

“[T]here is a need for better materials for international and global course content, as well as ready-made materials for use by non-experts.”

—Anonymous peer reviewer, 18 May 2020

Resources for Arabic as a foreign language educators (U.S.)

In a recently published study using the U.S. Department of Education Evaluation of Exchange, Language, and International and Area Studies (EELIAS) database, Elizabeth Worden and Jeremy Browne (2018) demonstrate the “disconnect” between the demand for proficient speakers of Middle Eastern languages and the ability of Title VI centers to produce them, particularly at the master’s level.2

Online open-access platforms lack archival resources related to the Middle Eastern region that are accessible in both English and Arabic. This is an obstacle for U.S. educators teaching Arabic and their students who rely on archives to carry out their research and assignments. Navigating websites entirely in Arabic for the first time is daunting for any beginner- or intermediate-level Arabic student. Similar challenges are faced by upper-intermediate and superior-level Arabic students when they make their initial attempt to access technical archives in the Middle Eastern region, particularly when the sole language of cataloging and reference is Arabic.

Among the relatively few other archives beginning to address the need for dual-language interfaces are the Council on Library and Information Resources’ Digital Library of the Middle East, NYU Abu Dhabi’s Akkasah archive, and the Arab Image Foundation, all of which launched Arabic-language interfaces in 2020.

Our online archive is already a key resource for scholarship on the MENA region, but through the ACOR Digital Archive project (2020–2024), it will become a critical tool for U.S. educators seeking to deliver a global education.

1. Shami and Miller-Idriss 2018. 

2Worden and Browne 2018. 


References

Shami, Seteney and Cynthia Miller-Idriss (eds.). 2018. “Introduction: The Many Crises of Middle Eastern Studies.” In Seteney Shami and Cynthia Miller-Idriss (eds.), Middle Eastern Studies for the New Millennium: Infrastructures of Knowledge, 1–30. New York: New York University Press.

Worden, E., and J. Browne. 2018. “Arabic Language Learning on US Campuses after 9/11: ‘Needs’ and Challenges.” In Seteney Shami and Cynthia Miller-Idriss (eds.), Middle Eastern Studies for the New Millennium: Infrastructures of Knowledge, 225–250. New York: New York University Press. 

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ACOR Photo Archive Project 2016-2020: Building a Valuable Resource for “a Diverse, International Community”

ACOR Photo Archive Project 2016-2020: Building a Valuable Resource for “a Diverse, International Community”

By Jessica Holland, Archival Projects Consultant, First published January 25, 2021 on ACOR Announcements. Republished as an ACOR Photo Archive photo essay on April 29, 2021. 

“To reproduce an object is a task that requires know-how, but to understand what the object represents, its function or how it came to be, requires another kind of knowledge.”

—Akram Zaatari, Against Photography (Barcelona: Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2018, p. 103)

Achievements: reflections on four transformative years

Prior to this project, ACOR’s archival photographs lingered in the basement—undisturbed and uncataloged—for years, in formats that, in terms of modern library usage, were rapidly becoming inaccessible. Since the launch of the photo archive platform in 2017, these images have been in constant use by high-school and university students, professors, researchers, publishers, and prestigious institutions, such as the Smithsonian. In 2020, the photo archive processed its largest ever image request, providing an extraordinary 700 images to the Living Museum of Umm Qais project. ACOR’s archival materials have gone from being under threat of disintegration and all but out of reach to being digitally preserved and regularly accessed by over 6,500 distinct users each year.

One of the most significant achievements of this project was the creation of an authority list that for the first time compiles all major transliterations and Arabic-script versions of more than two hundred prominent heritage site names in Jordan. This list, made open access for other projects to benefit from, incorporates internationally recognized standards—including the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, Library of Congress naming authorities, and local taxonomies (such as those of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities and Royal Geographic Society)—and thus provides previously disconnected data in one place.

In order to encourage scholarship based on ACOR’s archival materials, an exhibition and fifteen photo essays were published on the project website to provide context about the collections, greatly exceeding the project goal of only ten essays. Some are interviews with distinguished archaeologists, among them Nancy Lapp and Bert de Vries. Others draw out themes from among the images, such as the feminist history of archaeology and community heritage. People beyond ACOR are following suit with their own such works. In 2019, Boston College’s undergraduate journal of Middle Eastern studies, Al Noor, published a photo essay of Jane Taylor photographs from Mada’in Al-Saleh in Saudi Arabia.

Presentations designed to increase awareness of the photo archive have been given in the U.S. six times (including twice virtually), in Jordan eleven times, and twice in other international venues (London, Athens). Four video lectures, including one in Arabic, have been produced and shared widely online. These can be viewed on the ACOR YouTube channel. Once again, the project’s efforts far exceeded its stated goals, which were to give two U.S. and two international presentations. We are proud to have reached a much broader audience.

Building an interconnected community of practice

The ACOR Photo Archive was made possible through self-reflective collaboration. Although originally envisioned to solely make ACOR’s archival images available to academics and professionals, the project ended up interacting with a far broader audience. This was due to the variety of people who worked on the archive taking time to listen to what was important about the archive with respect to each other’s area of specialist knowledge and membership of different (potential user) communities. By listening to these insights, we were able to make decisions about the design of the online archive that would make it accessible to a range of international groups of differing education levels—from scholars to schoolchildren. Project archivists with master’s degrees in library and information studies (MLIS) and in digital humanities, museum studies, and the history of photography hailing from the U.S. and the UK worked together with Jordanian-Palestinian librarians and digitization technicians with in-depth archaeological knowledge of Jordan and the wider Middle East to produce an archive that was suited to the Jordanian context.

The ACOR library and archival team sought to share the archival knowledge they themselves were gaining through the project at every stage. A newly initiated program of digitization internships brought students and graduates from around the region to participate. In Jordan, ACOR is one of the few institutions offering such training, which directly helps to advance the field in the country. Since 2017, ACOR has run workshops on archival methods that have been instrumental in building an archival community of practice in Jordan and the wider region. Attendance trebled in three years, with sixty-five gallery, library, archive, and museum professionals from eighteen institutions participating in 2019. As a result of these initiatives, ACOR has become a hub for capacity-building in archival skills.

The photo archive team also sought to share lessons learned throughout the project by participating alongside peers and leaders in the field at the Council on Library and Information Resource’s Digital Library Forum 2019, as well as by bringing North American and international experts to Jordan.

All of these collaborations matter because decisions taken at the metadata level inform how digital objects are presented to—and therefore are understood by—both local and international communities. In the postcolonial context of overseas research centers such as ACOR, this is a significant responsibility. Consequently, the photo archive that this multicultural team produced is “fit for purpose” for promoting understanding of Jordan and the region locally and far beyond.

Arabic-language accessibility

In the course of the project, the team became increasingly aware of the limitations of the original project scope with regards to the language that would make it possible to sift through the 31,000-photo archive to locate images of a particular place or topic. As in the world of print publication, the digital humanities landscape has been dominated by the English language. As a result, English-language scholarship often provides the default references.

Translating the analog photographs to a digital existence on the open internet wasn’t enough to ensure sufficient access to the wide range of stories they had to tell. We needed to seize this opportunity of funded, focused efforts to literally translate the textual data they offer: the handwritten English-language notes of photographers and scholars that we were transcribing had to be translated into Arabic. We then needed to synthesize these notes in both languages into the mechanism for finding information online: search terms or keywords.

Through efforts pioneered by ACOR library staff, this two-step translation process, which provides rich information in Arabic as well as English, was given its initial trial run through the Madaba photo series within the Rami Khouri collection. This had great results but took double the time to produce the metadata, even though the academic texts consulted for the captions were available in Arabic, a rarity for cultural heritage texts.

The types of limitations we were encountering aren’t unique: digital humanities is an emerging field facing up to its inherited problems worldwide. However, as ACOR is a research center dedicated to supporting knowledge development within the postcolonial context of Jordan, it was vital for our team to deconstruct barriers blocking equitable access to archival material upon which further knowledge may be produced, whether in the form of academic scholarship or public history.

Engagement

In order to begin dismantling such structural inequalities, we built outreach and engagement into every activity. Making a resource open access isn’t enough—you need to actively encourage use, recontextualization, and reinterpretation of the images. Since the project’s launch in 2017, we have invited many different voices to interpret the archival records.

When the first Jordan School Librarians Conference was held in 2018, we jumped at the chance to tell these vital conduits of knowledge about the resource ACOR offered for Jordan’s heritage, a subject that makes up a significant part of the middle- and high-school national curriculum. In turn, this engagement exposed us to the needs of these new user groups. We added a “citation template” section for each photo in order to clearly communicate how students could reuse photos with appropriate attribution. As children began to use the archive as a research tool, they benefited from our reliable information source for their school projects, such as on Petra, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Wikipedia

It is difficult to overestimate the need for accurate open-access information sources in Jordan, so, using ACOR’s archives, the team worked to create a comprehensive data set about Jordan’s heritage sites. This in turn became the foundation for contributions to the world’s largest source of open-access information: Wikipedia. For our first in-house “edit-a-thon,” held in 2019, we collaborated with Wikimedia Levant, the Jordan Open Source Association, and photographer Bashar Tabbah. Fifty members of the public, spanning generations, attended, among them students, professionals, and retirees, all wanting to contribute to how their heritage was being framed online. The success of this event led ACOR to establish a Wikimedians in Residence program. We have now held four edit-a-thons and contributed 45,500 words to the Arabic and English Wikipedia websites. For more about our Wikipedia initiatives, check out “’Open Jordanian Heritage’: Wikimedians Share Stories of Editing Online.”

The SCHEP Photo Archive

Based on the experience gained through creating the photo archive, ACOR and the USAID Sustainable Cultural Heritage through Engagement of Local Communities Project launched the SCHEP Photo Archive in June 2020. This was a pilot project to archive the project’s born-digital images, providing bilingual image titles, descriptions, and keyword search terms to enable both Arabic and English speakers to fully benefit from this resource. The more than 5,000 photos in the USAID SCHEP collection will be available to browse on the photo archive platform from March 2021.

Next steps

These accomplishments are not the end of ACOR’s photo archive projects. Next up: the ACOR Digital Archive Project, made possible with another American Overseas Research Center Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education. This new grant-funded work will make available 18,000 digital objects, including audio and video recordings, documents related to archaeological projects, and more, from both new and existing collections. The new project also incorporates an educator fellowship program to help activate these archival materials, whereby faculty from U.S. community colleges and minority-serving institutions will receive fellowship support to develop open-access lesson plans based on the archive. The new project will also put a special focus on enhancing Arabic language metadata.

For future updates on ACOR’s Digital Archive, join our mailing list. You can also browse select highlights from the collections at instagram.com/acorjordan/.

We would like to thank all those who participated in the ACOR Photo Archive Project and to recognize the numerous library patrons and academics who answered our many questions with patience and generosity.


*The phrase quoted in the title of this article is from a report by project external evaluator Aaron Rubinstein, 28 September 2020.

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Introducing the USAID SCHEP Collection (EN)

Introducing the USAID SCHEP Collection (EN)

A message from ACOR Executive Director Pearce Paul Creasman and USAID SCHEP Chief of Party Nizar Al Adarbeh

Ghawr as Safi, site tour with ACOR USAID SCHEP staff and project director Konstantinos Politis, 2016.

لقراءة المقال بالعربية اضغط هنا

In 2014, ACOR partnered with USAID to establish a groundbreaking new project that would approach heritage management in new and dynamic ways. Building on the model of ACOR’s Temple of the Winged Lions Cultural Resource Management Initiative, which worked to involve people from Petra in multiple aspects of the project, and inspired by the best aspects of other ongoing projects across Jordan, ACOR adapted this model and scaled up its approach into the Sustainable Cultural Heritage Through Engagement of Local Communities Project (USAID SCHEP). SCHEP has evolved and witnessed several stages of development into a customized model that could be adapted to achieve the project objectives. More information can be found about the project in the open-access publication The Story of SCHEP 2014–2018.

Today, we are pleased to announce the addition of 4,710 images from the first four years of this pioneering project to the ACOR Photo Archive. ACOR and SCHEP are proud that this collection is both the first born-digital collection in the ACOR archive and described using fully bilingual English and Arabic metadata. The SCHEP Photo Archive team worked diligently to create and translate these data in order to ensure the maximal accessibility of these images and the information contained therein for a range of audiences in the US, Jordan, and beyond.

Umm al Jimal, local workers clearing interpretive trail, 2017.

From 2014 to 2018, USAID SCHEP supported the adoption of its community engagement model at nine archaeological sites across Jordan, conducting site development interventions to make them more accessible, training local community members to take an active role in their management, raising awareness of their potential as tourism sites, and supporting the establishment of community-rooted enterprises to help care for the sites and offer experiential tourism services.

Ghawr as Safi, familiarization trip for Ammon University students, 2018.

Along the way, the project worked with Jordanian heritage-mandated entities to help develop tools and guidelines to improve the management of Jordan’s cultural heritage, while ensuring a role for local communities in these processes.

Amman, ArcGIS training for employees of the Department of Antiquities and the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority, 2017.

SCHEP also engaged children and youth in hands-on activities designed to increase their awareness of and interest in cultural heritage. During the first four years of the project, SCHEP engaged thousands of young people from all over Jordan in pottery making and reconstruction, mosaic art workshops, site visits with active learning components, and more. Just as SCHEP worked to ensure that the lessons of appreciating, caring for, and preserving Jordan’s heritage were passed on to the next generation, the project is proud now to share this new collection of photographs that preserve its activities and achievements for posterity—and for researchers and practitioners yet to come.

Amman, awareness activities at the Children’s Museum Science and Art Festival, 2017.

As deeply rooted as SCHEP is in Jordan and in local communities and sites throughout the country, the spirit of the project have always reached beyond Jordan’s borders. It is our hope that SCHEP’s model, as well as the specific activities and interventions that we have employed, will serve as an inspiration and an initial blueprint for other projects worldwide. SCHEP demonstrates a viable alternative to top-down, outside-in heritage management. SCHEP works toward a future in which local communities are key stakeholders in decisions about their neighboring heritage sites, active participants in the implementation of such decisions, and direct beneficiaries of tourism to their own hometowns.

Petra, site visit and workshop for SCHEP site stewards, 2017.

This is one reason we are proud to be working within the ACOR Photo Archive (soon to be the ACOR Digital Archive) to make the USAID SCHEP collection freely available online as a resource for whoever may be interested. These pictures convey information that goes far beyond what we have been able to put into words and help bring the ideas of SCHEP to life. They serve as important documentation of modern conservation techniques and cutting-edge technologies employed at several sites. The images also provide documentation of the sites themselves, many of which, such as Busayra and Bir Madhkur, are not well-known even within Jordan.

At-Tafilah, archaeological site of Busayra, remains of postern gate providing access from the walled city to the canyon below, 2017.

Digital access to these sites is especially important in light of the coronavirus pandemic and resulting limitations on travel and in-person visits, which have coincided with an increase in the use of online resources. With these images accessible to all, students and researchers in the U.S., Europe, the wider Middle East, and beyond can better understand Jordan and its heritage sites when unable to visit in person.

Familiarization trip to Bir Madhkur, 2016.

A collection of photographs taken by drone over the site of Umm al Jimal, for example, shows aspects of the site and surrounding area that would be less visible from the ground, as well as evidence of looting.

Umm al Jimal, aerial view, east side of site, 3rd–4th century Roman fort in upper middle area, fields, 2017.

The collection also showcases the techniques used by SCHEP and its partners to excavate, conserve, protect, and study the project’s affiliated sites, as well to improve their navigability and presentation to the public. In the images below, you can see several stages of SCHEP-supported interventions at the Temple of the Winged Lions in Petra (the images progress through time from the top left to the bottom right). As a result of this work, the site is now better protected, stabilized, and prepared for winter rains with an improved drainage system.

It is exciting to integrate SCHEP into the ACOR Digital Archive as this important resource continues to develop and change to become more accessible for all. The USAID SCHEP Collection is the first collection for which all metadata has been produced in both English and Arabic. It is also the first “born-digital” collection to be included, addressing a major future issue for all such archival resources. We are all grateful for this collaboration, which was especially impactful to work on during the pandemic, when the importance of digitization and open access resources has never been clearer.

SCHEP was granted a four-year extension period in 2018, and over the next few years we will continue to add to this collection until it represents a comprehensive archive of the project over its entire period of implementation, reflecting the ways in which the approach and methodology also changed over time.

Finally, we wish to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the team that made this collection possible, even under challenging and ever-shifting circumstances. From June 2020 until February 2021, the SCHEP Photo Archive staff comprised:

Ashley Lumb, SCHEP Photo Archivist

Shatha Abu Aballi, SCHEP Communications Manager

Starling Carter, SCHEP Communications Specialist

Jessica Holland, ACOR Archivist

Nora Al Omari, SCHEP Archival Assistant (from November 2020)

Khadija Al Faqeer, SCHEP Archival Assistant (July – September 2020)

We also would like to acknowledge the SCHEP staff, who worked hard during the past years to accomplish the goals of the project, capturing these images. The current staff can be seen on the “Meet the Team” page, and all previous members are listed in The Story of SCHEP 2014–2018.

We encourage you to visit the full collection, but you may want to first view the curated content selected by our specialized team to get an introduction to the themes running through the USAID SCHEP archive, inspiring your own research questions. For this reason, we have created several online galleries showcasing different components of USAID SCHEP: Site Development, Capacity-Building, Awareness, Tourism Development, and Events, Conferences, and Lectures.

For more information about USAID SCHEP, visit acorjordan.org/schep.

For more information about ACOR, visit https://acorjordan.org.

The Sustainable Cultural Heritage Through Engagement of Local Communities Project (SCHEP) is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by the American Center of Research (ACOR).

Text and photo selections by Starling Carter, with input from Jessica Holland, Shatha Abu Aballi, Nizar Al Adarbeh, and Noreen Doyle.

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Arabic – Capacity Building

بناء القدرات

على الرغم من أن مدة المشروع محدودة إلا أن الهدف الذي يسعى المشروع  منذ البداية لتنفيذه  هو تحقيق أثر دائم يغيّر المنهجية التي يتبعها الأردن في حفظ وحماية إرثه الثقافي الغني والترويج له، ومن أجل ذلك شكّل المشروع – ومنذ بدايته- شراكات مع الأشخاص والمشاريع والجامعات والهيئات الحكومية العاملة في هذا المجال تجنباً لبدء العمل من نقطة الصفر. وبعد تقييم الاحتياجات وتقييم المشاريع السابقة والتواصل مع المعنيين وأصحاب المصلحة، استطاع المشروع تحديد الجوانب التي تحتاج إلى تعزيز وبناء قدرات وتنمية مهارات هذه الجهات التي يعمل معها. فبدأ المشروع عمله في بناء القدرات من خلال مجموعة متنوعة من الدورات التدريبية والمؤتمرات والجلسات الحوارية لرسم السياسات. فقد صمم المشروع جميع برامجه حسب  احتياجات الجهات التي يعمل معها، حيث عمل على تنمية المهارات ذات الفائدة بالفعل والتي يحتاجها العاملون لتطوير مستوى أدائهم وعملهم، ولمساعدة الشركاء والعاملين في قطاع الإرث الثقافي على تحقيق الاكتفاء الذاتي وعلى اكتساب المعرفة والخبرة اللازمتين للمضي قدماً بعد انتهاء المشروع

عمل المشروع على تصميم نموذج إدارة مستدام للإرث الثقافي في المواقع التي ينفّذ برامجه فيها، حيث ركّز جهوده على بناء قدرات الأفراد والمجتمعات خاصة التي تعيش في محيط المواقع الأثرية وزودهم بالأدوات التي تلزمهم للاعتماد على أنفسهم في رعاية مواردهم  بشكل مستقل دون الحاجة للمبادرات الحكومية أو الأجنبية. تمكن المشروع من تصميم مجموعة متنوعة من الدورات التدريبية لأبناء المجتمعات المحلية والتي صممت كل واحدة منها بشكل يراعي خصوصية كل موقع، مما ساعد على صقل مهاراتهم الفنية ومعارفهم وفهمهم لتاريخ وأهمية كل موقع ورفع وعيهم وتقديرهم لتراثهم

تصوير: عبد الفتاح غريب، زيد كاشور، يوسف أحمد، صوفيا سميث

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Arabic – Events

الفعاليات

دعم وشارك مشروع استدامة الإرث الثقافي بمشاركة المجتمعات المحلية وبتنفيذ من قبل المركز الأمريكي للأبحاث في العديد من المناسبات الخاصة والاجتماعات رفيعة المستوى والمحاضرات والمؤتمرات منذ عام 2014 إلى 2018. وقد وفرت مثل هذه الفعاليات فرصًا لتبادل المعرفة وتطوير وتقديم السياسات والمبادئ التوجيهية، وتخطيط التعاون، وتقوية مجتمع ممارس في حماية الإرث الأثري الأردني

تصوير: صوفيا سميث، عبد الفتاح غريب، فريق الجمعية الملكية لحماية البيئة البحرية، يوسف أحمد، باربرا أ.بورتير 

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Arabic – Awareness

التوعية

إن المجتمعات المضيفة هي التي تحدد نجاح أو فشل المشروع؛ لذا فإن بناء علاقات معها يعتبر واحداً من أهم أهداف مشروع استدامة الإرث الثقافي بمساعدة المجتمعات المحلية، وعليه فإن المشروع يلتزم أولاً بإحضار المعنيين وأصحاب المصلحة وتشجيع جميع مدراء المشاريع على الانخراط مع وجهاء المجتمع المحلي وشرح أهداف المشروع ونهجه في العمل بشكل واضح. وما أن تتشكل هذه العلاقات، يبدأ المشروع بحملات التوعية لدى بقية المجتمع، مع التركيز على الشباب والأسر، حيث أن توعيتهم بقيمة تلك المواقع التاريخية والفوائد الاقتصادية التي يمكن أن توفرها للمجتمع وتجعل منهم شركاء فاعلين

يتبع المشروع نهج شرح السلوكيات في التعامل مع الموقع بدلا من منعها، والتركيز على التعلم وليس على تأديب السلوكيات بل إنه يسعى إلى تعزيز حس الفخر بالموقع الأثري وتقوية روابط المجتمع به من خلال تنظيم ودعم زيارات إلى المواقع، مما يساعد في تحقيق الكثير من القيم التي يعمل المشروع على تطويرها. فمن أهم ما سعى إليه المشروع ضمن برامج التوعية هو أن يشعر الطالب بأنه جزء من الموقع وذلك من خلال زيادة انخراطه ببعض الأنشطة التفاعلية مثل تعلم كتابة النقوش الثمودية وصناعة الفسيفساء ترميم الفخار. 

نؤمن بأنه عندما يتحقق مستوى الوعي المطلوب تصبح المجتمعات المحلية مكوّناً أساسياً ضمن فريق العاملين بالمشروع، فمثل هذه الأنشطة تساعد في حماية المواقع من أعمال التخريب ويصبح أفرادها قادرون على مشاركة قصة وتاريخ الموقع التي تجذب المزيد من الزوار

تصوير: إيمان عبد السلام، عبد الفتاح غريب، فريق جمعية أصدقاء الآثار والتراث الأردنية، يوسف أحمد، صوفيا سميث، نايف الشملات، فريق الجمعية الملكية لحماية البيئة البحرية، مصطفى العجلوني 

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