Exhibition on archaeological research in Jordan opens at UJ

AMMAN — A poster exhibition on archaeological research opened on Thursday at the University of Jordan (UJ) as part of an exchange programme between Jordanian and German academic institutions that started a few years ago, according to the organisers.

The exhibition, titled “Critical Perspectives on German, Austrian and Swiss Archaeological Research in Jordan, from around 1800 to the Present Day” will last until June 30, and was organised by students from the Institute for Classical Studies of the University of Kiel in Germany and the School of Archaeology and Tourism at the University of Jordan, said German professor and co-organiser of the event Oliver Pilz.

“Each poster focuses not only on individual scholars such as Ulrich Jasper Seetzen(1767-1811), Johann Ludwig Burchardt (1784-1817) or Alois Musil (1868-1944), but also on institutions involved in archaeological research in Jordan, including the German Society for the Exploration of Palestine and the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology in Amman,” said Pilz.

Pilz added that one of seven posters is dedicated to Professor Thomas Weber-Karyotakis, “whose life and work was and is inextricably intertwined with the Levant in general and Jordan in particular”.

“Posters prepared by the German students are in German and English languages, while posters prepared by Jordanian students are in English and Arabic,” Pilz said, noting that the topic of the exhibition was the history of the archaeological research in the Levant by German, Austrian and Swiss scholars.

For Pilz, particularly important was that German students of classical studies had the opportunity to see archaeological sites in Jordan.

“There are so many projects, and the new one starts in Petra by Humboldt University from Berlin, and there is a partnership between the University of Jordan and the University of Munich,” Pilz said.