Our next series, “Qusayr Amra: Forest in the Desert,” will consist of seven posts, beginning with: 1. The Luxury Oasis Qusayr Amra, shown from a distance in this photo, is a former palace located in the relatively fertile desert of northern Jordan. It was built in the early 8th century CE for one of the Umayyad caliphs, perhaps Walid I, Yazid II, or Walid II. The trees and grasses thrive thanks to the groundwater below Qusayr Amra, which originates from the nearby Azraq wetlands. The vivid greenery visible around the palace foreshadows the extravagant and richly colorful frescoes of humans and animals within it. Photo from the Paul and Nancy Lapp collection. (fb)

New book in the ACOR Library: _Mobile Peoples – Permanent Places: Nomadic Landscapes and Stone Architecture from the Hellenistic to Early Islamic Periods in North-Eastern Jordan_ by Harmen O. Huigens (Archaeopress Access Archaeology, 2019) From the publisher: “This book focuses on the architectural features, including enclosures and elaborate burial cairns, that were created in the landscape some 2000 years ago and which were used and revisited on multiple occasions. It explores how nomadic communities modified these landscapes by presenting new data from remote sensing, field surveys, and excavations. To better understand the purpose of these modifications and how this changed through time, the landscape is further analysed on various temporal and geographic scales.” (fb)