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Tall Zira'a meets San Francisco
At the ASOR annual meeting in San Francisco Dr. Jutta Häser (GPIA) presented a paper about the excavations at Tall Zira’a: Rural life in North-west Jordan during the Roman and Byzantine Period.
The Roman-Byzantine architecture is very different in the three excavation areas of Tall Zira’a. In Area II, for example, a stratigraphical sequence of ten strata from the Ummayad to the Early Roman period were excavated. They show different house types and a completely change in the layout of the buildings in the Byzantine period.
The dense stratigraphical sequence can be used for more information about the relation between the Decapolis cities and the rural surroundings. The paper tries to find out the relationship between the expansion and the decline of Gadara in relationship with the much longer lasting history of its important rural village 4.5 km south of it.
(November 2011)
Congress for young researchers in Turin (Italy)
The 4th edition of the Broadening Horizons conference was held in Turin (Italy) from the 25th to the 28th of October 2011. This International Congress is dedicated to early-stage researchers and postgraduate students who deal with several disciplines of the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean. The general aim of the conference is to encourage discussions on new topics and to promote the exchange of scientific information among students and scholars of many different specialities.
On behalf of the BAI Andrea Gropp and Katja Soennecken were participating and giving a lecture concerning their PhD thesis. Katja talked about “The transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age in Northern Palestine” and Andrea talked about “Transferred Religion – Can Faith be exchanged?”.
Weblink: http://www.broadeninghorizons4.unito.it/presentation.htm
DEI Course Programme 2011 attended the Tall Zira'a
This year's annual DEI Course Programme was first advertised specifically for journalists. The four participants from Germany, took a day trip from Israel to the Tall Zira'a.
They learned about the excavations and the importance of Talls for the history of the Levant. At the same time they were given an insight into the archaeological questions of "Gadara Region Project" and the historical and cultural development of the region until the present time.
(June 2011)
Renovation work in the excavation house
From 16 to 22 February 2011, the electrical installation in our excavation house (Umm Qais) is renewed. Six skilled craftsmen from Rietberg, Germany, have come from the local Bible Village. They still bear the cool spring days of Jordan to allow the start of our excavation in the beginning of March.
With it the renovation and preservation measures for the excavation house are continued, after in the last summer the sanitary facilities were already improved by the new bath house.
