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Dear Friends and Fans of Tall Hisban
All who have had the privilege of hiking to the summit of Tall Hisban in Jordan can attest to its magnificent panoramic view. I have personally spent hours on top of this ancient ruin savoring its glorious vistas. Westward are the magnificent views of. Mount Nebo and the Jordan Valley, Jericho and the West Bank, Jerusalem and Ramallah. Northward, are the biblical tall of El Al and the Ammonite hill country.South and eastward are the fertile plains and verdant valleys that extend toward Madaba and the Moabite table land.
It is no wonder that Tall Hisban, towering above the surrounding landscape at 885 meters above sea level, has been a height to conquer and defend by local strongmen and ambitious tribal kings and even by the resident proxies of distant emperors. Evidenced in the archaeological discoveries from Tall Hisban are the footprints ofa long line of conqueringpeoples including those of the ancient Amorites, Israelites, Ammonites, Moabites, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Umayyads, Abbasids, Ayyubids, Mamluks and Ottomans.
This multi-millennial tale of conquest by kings and emperors and of staunch survival by locals that is the “big story” of Tall Hisban is a story that many of you reading this post helped unearth as part of the original Heshbon Expedition led between 1968 and 1976 by Siegfried H. Horn, Roger Boraas and Lawrence T. Geraty, or as a member of the Phase II Tall Hisban Excavations led between 1997 and 2013 by myself and Bethany Walker, or as a sponsor-supporter of one of these expeditions. As you may already know, a short film about our current fieldwork and most recentefforts to narrate the “big story” of Tall Hisban can be found on YouTubeand Vimeo – when you search for “Deep Time at Tall Hisban.” A complete list of all of our scholarly publications can be found at our web site: http://www.madabaplains.org/hisban/overview-publications.htm
This post serves two purposes: the first is to let you know of efforts currently underway to provide for a sustainable future for the archaeological site of Tall Hisban itself, and the second is to tell you of plans underway to establish a Visitor Center in the abandoned stables and guest house (qasr) which is also known as the Nabulsi complex. Below I describe how we plan to provide apprenticeships for young men and women from Tall Hisban in order to restore these buildings using traditional methods of construction while also providing much valued employment and training to these young people. So yes, this is also an appeal inviting you to consider becoming a sponsor of this undertaking!