American Center of Oriental Research

This paper examines the history and contributions of the four current foreign research centers in Amman whose countries are Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Their origin stories and changes over time in Jordan are considered as well as some of the respective major contributions to the study of Jordan’s past and present.

In the winter of 1988, while surveying Wadi Shireh in the Hisma (or Wadi Ramm) Desert of southern Jordan, the 'Aqaba-Ma'an Archaeological and Epigraphic Survey, directed by the late William Jobling of the University of Sydney, discovered a rare early Islamic open-air mosque in association with several exceptional early Islamic (Kufic) inscriptions, one of which gives a date of 109 H (727/728 CE). While a number of scholars have since commented on the site’s interesting inscriptions, there has been little discussion of the mosque within its broader archaeological context or immediate landscape setting. This article evaluates the mosque, together with several associated buildings discovered in Shireh, in relation to similar early Islamic open-air mosques and marginal desert settlements known from the southern Levant. Following a review and analysis of the site’s intriguing inscriptions, the authors then offer tentative conclusions regarding the site’s function as a desert waystation during the time of the Umayyads.

The church and chapel on Jabal Harun near Petra - ZBIGNIEW T. FIEMA AND JAAKO FRÖSÉN, with the contributions of M.-C. COMTE, J. C. N. COULSTON, C. DANIELLI, A. ERVING, Y. GERBER, P. HAMARI, B. HAMARNEH, J. HÄMEEN-ANTTILA, H. HAGGRÉN, N. HEISKA, K. HINKKANEN, R. HOLMGREN, V. HOLMQUIST, H. JUNNILAINEN, D. KELLER, K. KOISTINEN, A. LAHELMA, J. LATIKKA, A. LEHTINEN, J. LINDBLOM, P. MIETTUNEN, E. MIKKOLA, K. ÖHRNBERG, S. POUTA, A. RAJALA, P. SATURNO, E. SIRONEN, J. STUDER, J. VIHONEN & M. WHITING, PETRA — THE MOUNTAIN OF AARON. THE FINNISH ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT IN JORDAN, VOL. I. THE CHURCH AND THE CHAPEL (Societas Scientiarum Fennica, Helsinki2008). Pp. 447, figs. 308, 69 in colour, folding plans inside back cover. ISBN 978-951-653-364-6. EUR. 125. - Volume 23