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An inconvenient truth about most archaeological excavations is that more often than not, they do serious damage to the landscape and scenery in the areas where they work. In their wake, archaeological expeditions leave not only wall-sections of houses, barnyards, streets and fortifications, but also unsafe and unsightly excavation trenches and scatters of stones and spolia. This raises the question: Do organizers and sponsors of archaeological excavations have a duty to restore the landscape and scenery they impact with their excavations?

Summit of Tall Hisban. APAAME_20191024_DS-0007. (Photographer: Dana Salameen, courtesy of APAAME)

Back in the day, under the old expeditionary model, the default answer to this question—as it was rarely asked–was no. Under this, now obsolete orientalist mindset, the excavator’s duty was to dig and record well and publish results in peer-reviewed venues in a timely manner. This is where her responsibility ended. How things were left in the field was not a concern as the prevailing assumption was that responsibility for maintenance and preservation of abandoned sites was in the hands of local authorities[1]. After all, in many cases, funds were collected by local permitting authorities ostensibly for precisely this purpose. Such funds, collected at the end of each excavation season, are not a sustainable solution to long-term maintenance of archaeological sites (especially minor sites not associated to ticket-generated income).

As the previous century came to an end, a prominent casualty of this situation was Tall Hisban, located in Jordan along the road linking Amman and Madaba and widely assumed to be biblical Heshbon [2]. Visitors to the site would have found an ascent to its summit to be a most arduous undertaking, as it required stepping warily through clusters of camel shock, tumbled stones and spolia of all shapes and sizes. For all but the most persistent, an ascent to its summit was not an appealing prospect.

A major reason why a team from Andrews University decided to return to work at Tall Hisban in 1996 under my leadership was to find a remedy for this situation. By then, the site had been abandoned for over two decades, the original Heshbon Expedition having ran its course from 1968 to 1976. A second reason was my desire to deepen understanding of already well documented long-term cycles of food system intensification and abatement at the site. A third reason was a consensus among the original Heshbon Expedition leaders that the site’s Islamic archaeology and history deserved to be re-visited with someone on-board with state-of-the-art qualifications for the task at hand. To this end, Bethany Walker was recruited to join our team, and her studies and publications since have proven to be ground-breaking on many levels where Islamic archaeology in Jordan and beyond is concerned. I would note, for example, her editorship of the Oxford Handbook of Islamic Archaeology and a new Journal of Islamic Archaeology (Equinox Publishing).

Group photograph from 2018 field season at Tall Hisban including international team (20 different nationalities) and local workmen.

In the course of over two decades of the second phase of excavations at Tall Hisban—now renamed the Hisban Cultural Heritage Project–a new vision and model of archaeological fieldwork crystallized that today is becoming standard archaeological practice in Jordan and beyond, namely community archaeology. What led to this model emerging in our particular case were three factors: first, the already mentioned situation of neglect at the site; second, a long tradition of ethnographic inquiries in the local community; and last but not least, the friendships and sentiments of mutual trust and understanding already fostered during the original Heshbon Expedition that could be built on as our team returned.

The goal of community archaeology at Tall Hisban since its onset in 1996 has been to partner with the local community in transforming the site and the town into a place of pride and economic opportunity for its residents even as it also would develop into a destination for visitors from elsewhere in Jordan and beyond. Construction of footpaths and viewing platforms was begun in 1997, followed in subsequent seasons with over three dozen in-situ exhibits, each accompanied by explanatory signage. Partners in these endeavors included workmen and their families from the village, the office of the local mayor and his staff; and personnel from the local and national headquarters of the Department of Antiquities.

From the left to the right, Mansour Sheehan (Tall Hisban Cultural Association), Saoud Albarari (Tall Hisban Cultural Association), Amer Awawdeh (Tall Hisban Tourist Development Project), Øystein LaBianca (Andrews University), Maria Trogolo (USAID-SCHEP), Anna Kim and Noel Harris (Andrews University interns).

One of the signs painted by Amer Awawdeh, local school teacher.

Sela’s founders with Øystein LaBianca. From left to right, Eman Abdassalam, Maria Elena Ronza, Ahmad Almousah, Øystein LaBianca, Shaker Alfuqara and Bassam Alfaqeer.

Maria Elena Ronza, a young archaeology student from Italy who joined our team in 2001, has been particularly responsible for the success of these undertakings. Having taken up residence in Jordan, she was in a good position to follow up on projects that could not be completed during our short field season. A good example is her work with local stakeholders to establish the Hisban Cultural Association as an official non-governmental organization, thus giving agency to local entrepreneurs from Hisban to develop Hisban into a touristic destination. Elena was subsequently hired by ACOR to assist with the Temple of the Winged Lion project [3]  to which she brought the community archaeology experience acquired at Hisban. She has since gone on to incubate together with Ahmad Almousah two all-Jordanian organizations aimed at building local capacity to benefit from protecting nearby cultural heritage sites. They are () and ().

Ahmad Almousah at work in Hisban applying lime mortar.

The Lawrence T. Geraty Community Archaeology Endowment was launched in 2020, in cooperation with the American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) as a fitting capstone to almost three decades of community outreach by our project. The purpose of this endowment is to support innovation and experimentation by archaeology teams such as ours to build toward sustainable local solutions for preserving and caring for archaeological sites. At the present writing, the fund stands at about $110,000, which has allowed a first distribution of interest earned to occur [4]. That first award was used this summer to leverage funds from antiquities authorities in Jordan to undertake a site-wide cleaning operation that has resulted in the site itself and all of its primary exhibits, signage and paths looking better than I have ever found on my many returns to Jordan. As important was discovering Yasmeen Al Ajarmah, an archaeology graduate from University of Jordan, who led this entire operation and whom I could offer a part-time job as a team-leader for site maintenance operations on an on-goingh basis. She, and a team of three local workmen, will also be assisted by Al Raqeem for Logistics and Training in working with the local community to develop various micro-enterprise activities that can generate income not only to pay for their own salaries, but also for other community entrepreneurs.

Among the micro-enterprises already underway that also generate funds to support protection of the site are a women’s cooperative providing locally made meals for our excavation teams, tour groups and other visitors; a program of educational activities for local school children that includes sale of a children’s book about Hisban in Arabic. Efforts are also underway to provide visitors with an on-line guided tour of the site which will include announcements of various micro-enterprises and an invitation to donate toward maintenance of the site.

Sela implemented 4 archaeological themed days with hands-on activities for children thanks to support of the Geraty Fund and in cooperation with Princess Basma Center in Hisban.

Book reading at Princess Basma Center in Hisban. In preparation for the launch of a children book about Hisban, the writer, Rasha Dababneh, standing in the middle wearing a mask, hosted a book reading for the children from the community. Children were invited to suggest ideas for the forthcoming children’s book.

Stanley Beikmann, a professor landscape design from Andrews University who served as a faculty member on our project, shared a vision of a botanical garden at Hisban with me some years ago. The Al Raqeem team, Yasmeen Ajarmah and her co-workers are helping this vision to be realized. Such a place includes well-tended and signed exhibits, interpretive paths and platforms, and places for groups of visitors to gather for purposes of orientation and education. An aspirational addition to this vision is a visitor center complete with rest-room facilities, a small shop/cafe, a physical model of the site and a small theatre for screening a short film about the site in different languages.[5]

Welcome event in the amphitheater at the entrance to Hisban.

My answer to the question posed about archaeologists’ responsibility at the beginning of this article is: We can no longer avoid responsibility for how sites are left once our fieldwork is ended. The community archaeology model developed at Hisban is obviously not appropriate for all excavations, but for larger projects involving multi-period tell sites, I believe our experience and approach has relevance [6] . For smaller projects involving only a few trenches or probes, the responsible solution is to simply fill in the excavated areas at the conclusion of the project. The days of the old expeditionary model are over. As archaeologists, we have a responsibility to do unto others as we would have others do unto ourselves.

-Øystein LaBianca, Andrews University

^[1] For local communities abandoned excavation sites often leave unanswered questions and expectations: Does this mean the team will be back to ‘look after’ their site? Does leaving it open mean they can expect tourism? Furthermore, abandoned sites mean no ‘closure’ for communities and are often unsatisfactory from their point of view – ugly scars in their landscapes which fill with trash and slowly decay, potentially souring positive relationships established with dig teams originally.
^[2] For the record, it should be noted that when the first phase of excavation was finished in 1976, the expedition leadership did not altogether neglect the concerns addressed here. Larry Geraty, then director of the project, and Bert de Vries, project architect, teamed up to prepare a plan for visitors to the site, including viewing platforms along the path that circled the site, etc. Detailed maps and plans were left at the Department of Antiquities along with the portion of the dig fees that were to go to the implementation of the plan. What did not happen was the sort of follow-up with the local community and with the department that became an integral part of the second phase of work at the site.
^[3]
[4] Seed funding for the endowment was provided by Ronald and Sheila Geraty. Andrews University and La Sierra University each contributed $10,000. Other major contributors ($1000+) to the endowment fund include Lawrence and Gillian Geraty, Oystein and Asta LaBianca, Carolyn Waldron, Joy Fehr, Doug and Carmen Clark, Susan Ackerman, Tim Harrison and Andy Vaughn. by selecting “Geraty Endowment Fund” from the drop-down menu in the link.
^[5] See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2kUMkjmRF8\
^[6] For more about the Hisban Community Archaeology model, see