Review and update in summer 2005

In summer 2005, a review and update were carried out in the newly-renovated excavation house in Umm Qais.

After several months of preparatory work in Amman and Wuppertal, seven archaeologists went to Umm Qais to check again all diagnostic sherds (ceramics) and individual finds and enter them into our relational excavation database. The standards developed during previous excavation campaigns were thus implemented for all artefacts found.

All finds from the 2001 survey were reviewed and have now been completely evaluated. Together with all the details of the contexts and other evidence they were entered into the database, ensuring a reliable and comparative processing of results.

The finds are deposited in systematic order in a specific Tall Zira'a storeroom of the Umm Qais excavation house where they are always readily accessible.

We also started to develop a typological system for the pottery. Andrea Schwermer has taken on the responsibility for this demanding task on a long-term basis.

Patrick Leiverkus carried out a geophysical investigation of specific sections of Tall Zira'a and an environmental survey of the Wadi el-‛Arab. He set up a second database for the documenting of all features relating to the 30km-long wadi and will process the data until spring 2006, including, of course, all the surveys conducted previous to our explorations by Schumacher, Kerestes and Hanbury-Tenison.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all members of the team as well as to our sponsors and supporters, especially the BAI Freundeskreis. We are also indebted to the Hugo Gressmann Stiftung in Hannover, for its generous support of our young scholars.