2023 Harris Grant Report: Khirbat al-Mukhayyat, Jordan
A generous grant from ASOR—the Charles Harris Project Grant—helped support the 2023 excavation season of the Khirbat al-Mukhayyat Archaeological Project (KMAP), directed by Debra Foran. Mukhayyat (or the ancient town of Nebo) is located approximately 9 km northwest of the city of Madaba in Jordan.
Excavations at Mukhayyat this season focussed on the southern end of the site (Fields A and B), specifically on a plateau inside the major Iron Age fortification wall identified in previous seasons. Our goals for this season were to clarify several remaining questions related to the Hellenistic and Iron Age fortification system and to identify clear, stratified contexts that would reveal the nature and sequence of occupation in this area. In particular, excavations sought to clarify the length of the occupation during the early first millennium BCE and to ground-truth hypotheses derived from the analysis of survey material from the early 2000s. The excavations succeeded in the identification of architecture and contexts from the Iron Age and in the unexpected discovery of architecture and installations from the Hellenistic period. These results have created a strong foundation for continued excavation in this area.
Concomitant with these goals, the survey component of KMAP succeeded in mapping and conducting limited surface collections at two nearby sites: Khirbat al-Fayha and ‘Ayun adh-Dhib. This survey sought to document the Iron Age and Early Bronze Age remains found there and to better understand the region surrounding Mukhayyat during these periods. Similarly, the grant from ASOR helped to support specialist research on subsets of the larger project. In previous seasons, salvage excavations conducted at the behest of the Department of Antiquities recovered human remains from several mortuary contexts under threat and, in 2023, an inventory and preliminary analysis were completed. Lastly, as a part of the development of a Community Based Archaeology Program, a portion of the excavation team recorded past and ongoing illicit collecting episodes (“looting”), considering the motivations for such activity in order to better understand how sites might be protected in the future.
The KMAP team is grateful for the support of ASOR and looks forward to building on this research in future seasons.
Andrew Danielson, Field Director of the Khirbat al-Mukhayyat Archaeological
Project (University of British Columbia)
Debra Foran, Director of the Khirbat al-Mukhayyat Archaeological Project
(Wilfrid Laurier University)
With the collaboration of:
Mashour Fshaikat (Department of Antiquities of Jordan, Madaba Directorate), Gregory Braun (University of Toronto), Rose Campbell (University of California, Los Angeles), Grant Ginson (Trent University), Věra Doležálková (Central Bohemian Archaeological Heritage Institute), Jennifer Botica (North Island College), Heidi Fessler (Loyola Marymount University)
Learn more about the Khirbat al-Mukhayyat Archaeological Project on their website or their Instagram!
Friends of ASOR present the next webinar in the 2023-2024 season on October 5 2023, at 3:00 pm EDT, presented by Professor Aaron Brody moderated by Dr. Caroline Sauvage. Ancient seafarers faced dangers and fears posed by the sea and hazards of sailing. Accordingly, specialized sacred beliefs and ritual practices developed among Levantine mariners, who are the focus of this study, which were a subset of terrestrial religion. Sailors honored deities whose maritime, celestial, or meteorological attributes could either benefit or devastate a voyage. While on land, these divine patrons were worshipped in harbor temples and promontory shrines, sometimes with maritime votives. While at sea, divine protection came from the ships themselves, which were considered to be imbued with the spirit of a deity; the vessels also contained sacred spaces that allowed for continued contact with their divine patrons.
Mariners performed religious ceremonies to enlist and ensure sacred safeguarding and success for their voyages. Maritime features were also part of the funerary practices and mortuary rituals of seafarers. These specialized sacred beliefs and ritual practices were generated by the liminality of the deep and the unique uncertainties and perils at sea, and aided in Levantine maritime exploration, commercial exchanges, and Phoenician settlement that eventually spread throughout the Mediterranean basin and beyond to the Atlantic coasts of Iberia and Morocco.
Aaron Brody is the Robert and Kathryn Riddell Professor of Bible and Archaeology and Director of the Badè Museum at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. He has excavated primarily at harbor sites in Israel, including Tel Nami, Ashkelon, Dor, and Tel Akko; and participated in projects in the Negev and Akko Plain and with the Ohlone-Muwekma at sites in northern California. He has held fellowships at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem and the American Center of Research in Amman. Recent publications have focused on the topics of household religion, metallurgy, and interregional trade and economy at Tell en-Nasbeh, from holdings in the Badè and Rockefeller Museums. Professor Brody has longstanding research interests on Levantine seafarers, women’s religion and the sea, and underwater, deep-water, and harbor archaeology. He is a co-editor of a new volume, No Place Like Home: Ancient Near Eastern Houses and Households, recently published by Archaeopress. The research he is presenting today is from a chapter he authored in the Handbook of Material Religion in the Ancient Near East, edited by Nicola Laneri and Sharon Steadman, published earlier this year by Bloomsbury Academic press. That chapter and today’s talk are entitled “Maritime Viewscapes and the Material Religion of Levantine Seafarers”.
