DR. BRUCE ROUTLEDGE

FELLOWSHIP SPOTLIGHT

ASOR is pleased to announce that Dr. Bruce Routledge of the Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool has been awarded the 2017 Harris Grant, to support the Dhiban Excavation and Development Project.

The Harris Endowment provides modest grants to worthy field projects that are CAP-affiliated, particularly to newer and smaller projects, to help them get started; and to discrete components of larger projects that can be completed with an award. The Endowment also provides support for off-season research, analysis, and publications.
Dr. Routledge, and his co-director, Dr. Katherine Adelsberger of the Department of Environmental Studies at Knox College, will use the Harris Grant to focus on one component of the larger 2017 Dhiban Excavation and Development Project, namely, work on the site’s water reservoir that was built during the Iron IIA/B transition. This reservoir, according to Dr. Routledge’s application, “consists of a plastered wall above, or very near, the surface, which encloses a karstic depression in bedrock.” Forty-four m. of this wall have so far been uncovered; the excavators estimate is must be at least 50 m long.

Harris funds will support the project’s work in “uncover[ing] and document[ing] the remainder of the reservoir wall,” and also “consolidat[ing] and prepar[ing] the wall for site interpretation purposes.” This will add to our knowledge of the “large, open-air, water reservoirs” that are “emerging as a distinct monumental component of Iron Age town sites in central Moab.”

It may also be that the Dhiban reservoir should be associated with “the retaining wall for the reservoir for the water in the midst of the city” that Mesha claims to have built in the Mesha inscription. If so, as Dr. Routledge’s application notes, the reservoir’s remains “will create the first visible monument at Tall Dhiban that can be connected to the story of Mesha,” which “seems vital to the development of Tall Dhiban for visitors” and thus for the development of the modern town of Dhiban as a tourist destination. In addition to providing funding for architectural conservation, therefore, the Harris Grant will also be used to purchase a sun/weather resistant ceramic sign that identifies the reservoir wall.