Note: Michael Jennings is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago. He is responsible for the recording at the Jericho Mafjar Project. This past Fall, he spoke with some of the PARP:PS participants including myself about adopting the iPads for his project. I asked him to write an entry for this blog noting, in particular, what he is doing differently than we do at PARP. He can be reached at mdj@uchicago.edu.
What does one do with an entire area of an archaeological site for which all records of excavation (including plans, notes, and finds) have been lost? Addressing this question was one of the main objectives of the 2011 Jericho Mafjar Project (JMP), a joint archaeological investigation of the Palestinian Department of Antiquities and the University of Chicago at the iconic site of Khirbat al-Mafjar in modern Jericho. The site, as we know it today, consists of two main areas: a southern sector that includes a palace, pavilion, and magnificent bath, and a northern area. The northern area, excavated by a Jordanian team in the 1960s, is the area for which all records are missing.