Maan News Agency: New excavations at Hisham's Palace in Jericho
JERICHO (Ma’an) – Palestinian Authority Tourism Minister Khloud Daibes on Saturday announced the completion of the first stage of excavations at a new site at the historic Hisham's Palace in Jericho.
The project, which will excavate the northern gate of the never-completed Ottoman palace will be the first joint Palestinian-American archaeological excavation.
Joining the Palestinian team will be a visiting delegation from the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, a research organization and museum devoted to the study of the ancient Near East.
Inaugurating the project in Jericho, Minister Daibes said the work of the American team was in keeping with the celebration of Jericho's 10,000th birthday.
Long thought to be an unfinished palace used only during the 8th century A.D. and subsequently abandoned, previous research used pottery sequencing to show that areas around the central palace were actually occupied much longer, with estimates saying habitation went into the 13th century.
The latest excavations under the institute's Dr Donald Whitcomb and Palestine's Dr Hamdan Taha, will investigate the theory that the site was not just a palace complex, but was instead an incipient Islamic city.
At the inauguration, Taha said excavators would look for evidence that there were two stages of habitation at the site of the palace, during the Umayyad and then the Abbasid eras. Both archaeologists said they expected the finds at the northern gate to be similar to what was found in the south.
A secondary site near the already uncovered bath will also be established, the officials said, where work that finished in 2006 would be continued.
Excavations will be centered on the northern hill which was first explored in the mid 1960s under the supervision of Dr Awni Dajani, then director of the Jordanian antiquities department.
The site has been of archaeological interest to collectors and scholars for hundreds of years, with work dating back to the 19th century. Early work, however, was not well documented, and many of the artifacts ended up on the black market.
Now a Palestinian historical site, the palace and the surrounding compound marking Ancient Jericho, is one of a growing number of tourist attractions in the city.
The project, which will excavate the northern gate of the never-completed Ottoman palace will be the first joint Palestinian-American archaeological excavation.
Joining the Palestinian team will be a visiting delegation from the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, a research organization and museum devoted to the study of the ancient Near East.
Inaugurating the project in Jericho, Minister Daibes said the work of the American team was in keeping with the celebration of Jericho's 10,000th birthday.
Long thought to be an unfinished palace used only during the 8th century A.D. and subsequently abandoned, previous research used pottery sequencing to show that areas around the central palace were actually occupied much longer, with estimates saying habitation went into the 13th century.
The latest excavations under the institute's Dr Donald Whitcomb and Palestine's Dr Hamdan Taha, will investigate the theory that the site was not just a palace complex, but was instead an incipient Islamic city.
At the inauguration, Taha said excavators would look for evidence that there were two stages of habitation at the site of the palace, during the Umayyad and then the Abbasid eras. Both archaeologists said they expected the finds at the northern gate to be similar to what was found in the south.
A secondary site near the already uncovered bath will also be established, the officials said, where work that finished in 2006 would be continued.
Excavations will be centered on the northern hill which was first explored in the mid 1960s under the supervision of Dr Awni Dajani, then director of the Jordanian antiquities department.
The site has been of archaeological interest to collectors and scholars for hundreds of years, with work dating back to the 19th century. Early work, however, was not well documented, and many of the artifacts ended up on the black market.
Now a Palestinian historical site, the palace and the surrounding compound marking Ancient Jericho, is one of a growing number of tourist attractions in the city.
