Dhiban: Valuing Sites Through Valuable Stories

该项目的目的是通过提高其经济和社会价值，加强对约旦安曼以南70公里处的大丘塔尔迪班的地方管理。这将通过增加与场地的本地连接以及改善现场解说和管理来实现。塔尔迪班是圣经中摩押王国的首都，也是米沙铭文的发现地（现在在卢浮宫），这是黎凡特最长的铁器时代皇家铭文。尽管梅沙铭文提供了强有力的历史叙述和圣经联系，但该遗址很少有游客参观，当地居民对其知之甚少，因为可见的考古遗迹很难解释，而且部分模糊不清。现代迪班是拜尼哈米达部落的一个邻近的贝都因城镇，至少从2011年起，这里就一直是经济动乱的发生地。这场动乱导致了2016年对Tall Dhiban的抢劫增加，以及警察和抗议者之间在该网站本身的暴力对抗。该项目旨在通过增加外部游客的数量，将Tall Dhiban遗址转变为一种文化资源，以建立积极的当地遗产身份，并为当地企业提供经济资源。在这样做的过程中，我们还打算在约旦建立公共历史和文化遗产遗址管理的能力。为此将采取双重战略。在镇上，我们将与教师和穆塔大学的实习研究人员合作，开展一个以学校为基础的公共历史项目。该项目将在历史节上达到高潮，学生的家族史项目和社交媒体将被用来鼓励迪班的居民贡献他们自己的故事、图像和手工艺品。这些材料的储存库将在未来转交给社区，用于自主的公共历史项目。这个公共历史项目的一个重点将放在城镇、部落和迪班古城（考古丘）之间的关系上。在项目本身，我们将与哈希姆大学的学生合作，准备一个场地管理计划、解释性标志和展示场地的相关材料。我们亦会推行场地保养及清洁计划，以及建立访客通道。通过约旦非营利组织（SELA培训），我们将为四名来自迪班的失业青年提供国家认可的关于干石砌建筑基本保护技术的职业培训计划，这将使他们能够在约旦的遗产部门找到更稳定、收入更高的工作。它还将为我们提供熟练的技术人员，帮助我们稳定来自迪班5000年定居历史各个阶段的暴露建筑。目前，Tall Dhiban的游客数量非常少，因此我们预计，对网站外观的任何改进都将导致游客和外部收入按比例显著增加。它还将使Tall Dhiban成为在马达巴省开发一日游线路的潜在站点，在那里已经发现了两个联合国教科文组织世界遗产和几个重要的马赛克集中地。该遗址还将成为无形的当地历史叙述与主导考古解释的全球和国家叙述之间的融合点。在学术上，我们将尝试实现这种整合的最佳实践，阐明城镇和故事的历史相互交织和连续。如果设计成功，该场地将更容易融入当地的文化和教育活动，并为外国游客提供更多样化和细致入微的约旦体验。很明显，研究近代史将挑战学术方法，即告诉那些不把它们作为仍在信息中的地方进行分析的遗址。

The aim of this project is to strengthen the local stewardship of Tall Dhiban, a large mound 70 kms south of Amman Jordan, by enhancing its economic and social value. This will be achieved by increasing local connectivity with the site and improving on-site interpretation and management. Tall Dhiban is well-known as capital of the biblical kingdom of Moab and the find spot of the Mesha inscription (now in the Louvre), the longest Iron Age royal inscription from the Levant. Despite the strong historical narrative and biblical connections provided by the Mesha Inscription, the site is seldom visited by tourists and is poorly understood by local residents because the visible archaeological remains are difficult to interpret and partially obscured. Modern Dhiban is an adjacent Bedouin town of the Bani Hamida tribe that has been the site of economically motivated civil unrest since at least 2011. This unrest has led to increased looting of Tall Dhiban as well as violent confrontations between police and protestors on the site itself in 2016. This project aims to transform the site of Tall Dhiban into a cultural resource for the building of positive local heritage identities, as well as an economic resource for local businesses by increasing the number of external visitors to the site. In doing so, we also aim to build capacity in Jordan for public history and the management of cultural heritage sites. This will be pursued with a two-fold strategy. In town we will run a schools based public history programme working with teachers and Mutah University trainee researchers. This project will culminate with a History Festival, in which student family history projects and social media will be used to encourage residents of Dhiban to contribute their own stories, images and artefacts. A repository of these materials will be turned over to the community for self-directed public history projects in future. One emphasis of this public history project will be on the relationship between the town, tribe and the tell (archaeological mound) of Dhiban. On the tell itself we will work with Hashemite University students to prepare a site management plan and interpretive signs and related materials for presenting the site. We will also instigate a programme of site maintenance and cleaning, and the establishment of visitor pathways. Through a Jordanian non-profit (SELA Training) we will provide a nationally recognised vocational training programme in basic conservation techniques for dry-laid stone architecture to four unemployed youths from Dhiban, which should allow them to find more regular and better paid employment within the heritage sector in Jordan. It will also provide us with skilled technicians to help stabilise the exposed architecture from various phases of Dhiban's 5,000 year settlement history. Current visitor numbers for Tall Dhiban are very low, hence we expect that any improvement to the presentation of the site will lead to a proportionately significant increase in visitors and external income. It will also allow Tall Dhiban to be a potential stop on developing day-tour circuits within the Madaba Governate, where one already finds two UNESCO World Heritage Sites and several important concentrations of mosaics. The site will also serve as a point of integration between often intagible local historical narratives and the global and national narratives that dominate archaeological interpretation. Academically, we will trial best practices for realising this integration, articulating the histories of the town and the tell as intertwined and continuous. If successfully presented, the site will become easier to integrate into local cultural and educational activities and provide a more diverse and nuanced experience of Jordan for foreign tourists. It is already evident that engaging with recent histories will challenge academic approaches to tell sites that do not analyse them as places that are still in formation.