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Abstract
Since 2010 the Brown University Petra Archaeological Project (BUPAP) has been conducting a diachronic regional survey of the landscape north of Petra. In 2013 the authors conducted ethnographic interviews with members of the local communities surrounding Petra, the Bdul and Ammarin Bedouin tribes of Umm Sayhun and Bayda. These interviews aimed to understand contemporary engagements with, and attitudes towards, a landscape that has overwhelmingly been valued for its archaeological and heritage resources. This article combines regional survey and ethnographic methodologies in order to construct complex, multivocal narratives about archaeological remains. We also suggest locally appropriate modes of advocacy that archaeologists might productively pursue at Petra. In particular the results of our project highlight the importance of integrating the historically underrepresented voices of local groups into dialogues concerning conservation, water management and tourism, as well as diachronic interpretations of landscapes.
Acknowledgements
This work was undertaken as part of the Brown University Petra Archaeological Project, directed by Susan E. Alcock and Christopher A. Tuttle, under the supervision of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan (especially Mr Fares ad-Hmoud, Acting Director General, as well as Mr Jihad Haroun, Mr Akram Atoom, Mr Husain Askar and Mr Mohammad Almarahleh) and the Petra Archaeological Park (in particular Dr Emad Hijazeen and Eng. Tahani al-Salhi). We are also grateful to the funders of BUPAP: the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World and Brown University; the Loeb Classical Library Foundation; the Curtiss T. & Mary G. Brennan Foundation; and other institutions that funded our individual involvement in this project: a Platt Fellowship from the American Schools of Oriental Research (Knodell) as well as the Stanford Archaeology Center, the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies and the Biblical Archaeology Society (Mickel). Finally, we are most grateful to the members of the communities surrounding Petra who acted as gracious hosts throughout the duration of BUPAP and most importantly contributed essentially and directly to the present paper. We are especially indebted to Ahmed el-Faqir, Talal Ammarin, Kasim Ammarean, Sheikh Mehtar, Dakhlallah Qublan and Ismail Dakhlallah for their openness, generosity and insights. Any errors or faults in the paper, of course, remain our own.
Notes
1 With permission, interviewee names have not been changed, in order to acknowledge and give credit to our interviewees who possess expert knowledge.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Allison Mickel
Allison Mickel, is a PhD candidate in anthropology at Stanford University. Her doctoral research focuses on the histories of two long-term excavations in the Middle East. She sits on mountaintops drinking tea with Bedouins in Petra (Jordan) and shares iftar with the past workers at Catalhoyuk (Turkey) in order to assemble oral histories of the sixty-year archaeological projects conducted at these sites. Allison’s goal is not only to uncover new archaeological data that has not been documented, but also to contextualize and deconstruct how conclusions are formed in the field and how archaeological knowledge is produced. Ultimately, using multimedia tools and techniques, she hopes to propose a methodology for systematically recording these alternative perspectives in situ, during the course of archaeological excavation. Allison received her BA from the College of William and Mary in anthropology and linguistics and her MA from Stanford University in anthropology.
Alex R. Knodell
Alex R. Knodell, is an assistant professor in the Department of Classical Languages at Carleton College. His main research interests are in diachronic approaches to archaeologies of landscape and interaction in the Mediterranean and Middle East, in particular in Greece and in Jordan. He served as field director of the Brown University Petra Archaeological Project and currently co-directs the Mazi Archaeological Project (Northwest Attica, Greece).