Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East & North Africa
This project aims to preserve cultural heritage, and it also aims to graduate a cadre of Department of Antiquities employees capable of benefiting from all the programs provided in remote sensing techniques in archaeological documentation and assessment of the condition of archaeological sites and the types of threats they are exposed to.
The EAMENA project began as an annual program to fly over Jordan in cooperation with the Royal Jordanian Air Force to collect recent aerial photographs of archaeological sites and landscapes in Jordan to be digitized and preserved in the “Aerial Photographic Archive of Middle Eastern Archaeology,” which provided a valuable tool for researchers to analyze and compare the sites in the area over time. This was in 2017 after concluding a memorandum of understanding with the University of Oxford/United Kingdom on 10/10/2017 through the Endangered Antiquities in the Middle East and North Africa (IMENA) project, funded by the University of Oxford, for cooperation and training for a number of employees of the Department of Public Antiquities and the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. This took place in Amman during the years 2018-2019. In 2020, training was conducted through Zoom technology (online), and in 2023, the training work was completed, as 15 trainees from the Department of Antiquities and 22 employees from the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities participated in the field of database and site documentation. Trainees learned archaeological skills, the skills of reading and interpreting satellite images and making maps that identify and diagnose damage to these archaeological sites.
The current phase of training is the fourth phase and aims to train a group of 15 employees of the Department of Antiquities and 22 employees from the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities on the database, documenting archaeological sites digitally, and preserving cultural heritage. Training will include skills of reading and interpreting satellite images, making maps that identify and diagnose damage to these archaeological sites, and learning about the latest version of the EAMENA database through Arches 7 software under the supervision of the Department of Antiquities.
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