\nI\n am second from the right, next to the Jordanian Archaeology student \n(you gotta admire the strength of her religious conviction, because \nwearing this hijab under that sun was beyond what I could bare). You \ncannot tell from the picture how hot it was and how dehydrated, hungry, \nand tired I was. I\n cannot show detailed pictures of the dig site because the results have \nnot been published yet. But here is a touristic picture of the site \nwithout identifying any architectural features. The\n paved road that you see is the main straight road of the town. The \nRomans liked their square grid, the basis of their standard urban \nplanning. But in order to satisfy your curiosity for Roman ruins here \nare some pictures of Jarash itself. By\n the way “Roman” does not mean that the inhabitants of the town spoke \nLatin or that the town was built by the Roman state. In fact, the town \nwas built and beautified by its inhabitants who were a mixture of \nAramaic and Arabic speaking locals (that is before the Islamic period), \nand perhaps some Greek-speaking clergy and officials who also could be \nfrom mixed origins. Then, as it is today, what made you a citizen of the\n empire was not your ethnicity but your buying into its promise and its \nconstructed identity. Older blog 26 September, 2009 I am second from the right, next to the Jordanian Archaeology student (you gotta admire the strength of her religious…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local","wpcat-9-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scscme.org\/scscme\/blogs\/atassib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scscme.org\/scscme\/blogs\/atassib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scscme.org\/scscme\/blogs\/atassib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scscme.org\/scscme\/blogs\/atassib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scscme.org\/scscme\/blogs\/atassib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.scscme.org\/scscme\/blogs\/atassib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222,"href":"http:\/\/www.scscme.org\/scscme\/blogs\/atassib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions\/222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scscme.org\/scscme\/blogs\/atassib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scscme.org\/scscme\/blogs\/atassib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scscme.org\/scscme\/blogs\/atassib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_6CNc3Wi3Ph4\/Sr22z_w245I\/AAAAAAAAADI\/e6r2Kt-KRmM\/s320\/IJP_D4500.JPG\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_6CNc3Wi3Ph4\/Sr24-DfOPYI\/AAAAAAAAADQ\/ZQZRXcA4500\/s320\/IJP_D4461.JPG\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_6CNc3Wi3Ph4\/Sr29uUiG6pI\/AAAAAAAAAD4\/leFFwTbENbk\/s320\/IMG_1302.JPG\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_6CNc3Wi3Ph4\/Sr29tTmQTYI\/AAAAAAAAADo\/HfmnUHDmWuw\/s320\/IMG_1196.JPG\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_6CNc3Wi3Ph4\/Sr29t05XxtI\/AAAAAAAAADw\/0qMEE5TFDCc\/s320\/IMG_1241.JPG\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_6CNc3Wi3Ph4\/Sr29rjJh4nI\/AAAAAAAAADg\/NjFTHWTOOcg\/s320\/IMG_1189.JPG\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_6CNc3Wi3Ph4\/Sr29rBhU6CI\/AAAAAAAAADY\/hkVhlYhdrUs\/s320\/IMG_1182.JPG\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\nI vowed never to return, but now I dream about it every day. My \nconviction now is that the field of Medieval Islamic History must \ncontinue hand in hand with the field of Islamic Archaeology. I encourage\n all students of Medieval Islam to join a dig for a month or a couple of\n weeks. It is enlightening.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"