arc Brown University Petra Excavations elephant elephant
  arc At home 1996-1997 elephant elephant
  Several interdependent researches were undertaken after leaving the field in August 1996, although work continued at the Great Temple for its consolidation and restoration (infra). The activities that consume our homework can best be itemized and include:
  • All drawings of the stratigraphy, site plans, and artifacts were drafted. Special artifact drawings and reconstructions were undertaken by our Chief Draftsperson, Jean Blackburn, of the Rhode Island School of Design. The 150 drawings of plans and stratigraphy were inked by Ala H. Bedawi, our assistant draftsperson. Once the final plans were found to be acceptable, they were scanned by Laurel Bestock into the computer and labeled. All the plans which we had stored in other computer files at Brown University had to be brought together and in some cases had to be re-scanned so that the site file was up-to-date.
  • The update of the Great Temple Home Page for the Internet was undertaken by Benjamin H. Kleine of Brown University. This updated Home Page reflects the work that had been carried out in the last year. The funding for this project was donated by a Brown alumnus who has shown a keen interest in our computer systems. We also submitted a Web Page for the American Schools of Oriental Research: http://www.cobb.msstate.edu/asordigs/petra.html
  • The program and assignments for the five-year publication of the site was outlined. All the contributors were given standard guidelines for reporting both the 1997 results and their contributions for the five-year report. All the trench reports were edited for consistency in format and reporting to be readied for publication in our five-year report. The corrections and their insertion into PageMaker was undertaken by Kirsten K. Hammann.
  • Stephen V. Tracy, Mellon Visiting Mellon Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, translated, dated, and interpreted the partial inscription found in 1996 in the west room of the 'Adyton'. He publicly reported on these results at a lecture sponsored by the Brown University Classics Department.
  • Our data base for artifact collections (bone, stone, ceramics, stucco, glass, shell, and metal) was consolidated into File Maker Pro program. The total number of artifacts in this data base now number 85,932 artifacts with pottery numbering 69,477 sherds registered. These artifacts were then distributed over the phases we have assigned to the Great Temple stratigraphy.
  • The fine wares were given intensive study by Stephan Schmid of the Ecole Suisse d'archeologie en Grece, and once again Yvonne Gerber of the University of Basle, Switzerland, analyzed our plain wares and dated them. Deirdre G. Barrett of Brown University continued her analysis of the Great Temple lamps.
  • The Petra coins underwent continued study by Christian Augé of the University of Paris I - Sorbonne and David Smart. Avi Mannis, for his Senior Honor Thesis at Brown University instituted a digital archive project entitled: "Coins of the Great Temple, Petra: A Multimedia Archaeological Site Archive on CD-ROM." What Avi Mannis did was to integrate image, text, and three-dimensional space to foster intuitive access to the archaeological record. The current archive documents three years of coin recovery for 158 coins. The support for this research was given by a RAB grant. For those interested, this project can be reached by e-mail at: [email protected]
  • The 1996 site plan was refined by Paul C. Zimmerman of the University of Pennsylvania who "cleaned up" the 1996 plan for publication. This is an important task, for our data files are so extensive that we have to constantly be aware that they may be confusing to the first-time viewer.
  • Great Temple signage was designed in English and Arabic for visitor understanding of the excavations. It is scheduled to be in place on site by the end of the 1997 summer.
  • Graduate student, Sara Karz, began a study of the glass found during the excavations, "Succession of Glass in Form and Function at the Great Temple, Petra, Jordan."
  • Several scholarly articles (see site bibliography) were submitted for publication, and some 20 lectures were presented on the excavation.
  • Regarding 1996-1997 site protection and consolidation, a final report entitled "Petra, Brown University Excavations at The Great Temple," was submitted to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, World Monuments Watch, A Program of the World Monuments Fund. A summary of these activities can be found under Site Protection.
 
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