The digitization of formerly inaccessible archival sources from research programmes commissioned decades ago by mostly Anglo-European institutions has enabled easier access to the original paper records, while preserving an ageing resource. The archive of the more than fifty-year-old project at the multi-century site of Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Sharqī in Syria is one such case. Held at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology of the University of Michigan (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/k/kelsey), the archive holds records from six seasons of excavation between 1964 and 1971 under the direction of Oleg Grabar. This book presents a themed insight into the richness of the archive, and is illustrated with evocative photos in colour and black-and-white. It features a Preface by Renata Holod, two individual essays, and a gallery of photographs in which aspects of the fieldwork and related matters are depicted. The book is dedicated to the late Khalid al-Asʿad, Director of the Palmyra Museum and the Antiquities representative at Qaṣr al-Ḥayr. Killed at the hands of ISIS in 2015, his skills, activism, and humanity are poignantly conveyed in the book through a selection of the “visual and material traces of al-As‘ad's life and career [that] pervade the archive's photographs, letters, and postcards” (p. 33).
Holod was a core team member for most of the project. In her Preface, a personal account describes a career path from chaperone to field archaeologist, cataloguist, and then co-author of the final publication. It nicely sets the mood of the book: the diversity of people involved and the respectful interaction between local owners and the archaeological team. That was a sign of the appreciation and civility once expected of and understood by visiting missions, but today inexplicably ignored.
Following the Preface, two essays are presented. Gruber writes on the photographic record compiled during six seasons of fieldwork (1964–71). “In That They Only Live By Cliques”: Digging Below the Surface of Archaeological Photography at Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi (pp. 1–24) takes us on a rollicking walk through a panoptic photographic corpus, from architecture to people, created (predominantly) by photographer Fred Anderegg of Michigan University's Kelsey Museum, the main sponsor of the excavations. Anderegg's extensive photographic collection is technical, scientific, and informational, while “sometimes they also happen to be beautiful, evocative, or even eerie artistic” (p. 2). People at work and play are not left out of the collection, for “archaeological photographs are ‘as much about the diggers as things dug’” (p. 2, quoting F. Bohrer). To capture first-hand the technical and human elements, Gruber benefits from Holod to enliven selected images composed in bright colour or light-plays in 3D-like greys, reminding the reader that the achievement of an archaeological project is the sum of its many parts. From the high-quality photographs in the book, it is clear that Anderegg's compositional mastery over the camera and his ability to mitigate the impact of a hellish environment on cellulose film was exceptional. He understood light, artfully composed scenes, and edited the outcomes (p. 6, fig. 1.4). Scales were obligatory, from rods to people, and not just field staff but, appreciatively, also the local workers. As Gruber observes, “packing a bang, these impromptu photographs capture the emotion of joy and the dynamism of sound … they capture an entire archaeo-sensorium — a soundscape …” (p. 10). The workmen toiled, spoke, and sung in their ancient land, whereas the project team were but transient beginners. The harsh conditions they endured are presented as a measure of heroic endurance. While the dig house with its beehive roofing provided a degree of comfort, in May 1966 a huge dust storm “simply changed day into night for a few hours and literally engulfed us” as Grabar recounts (p. 17). Evocatively captured by Anderegg in a gritty photo of an approaching wall of dense reddish-orange dust, Holod remembers the “storm chaser” Anderegg embracing that moment in which Grabar stands firm, face turned towards the impending storm, “immortalized in one of the most dramatic images in the Qasr al-Hayr archives” (p. 20, fig. 1.14).
City in the Desert, Revisited serves as an informative tool for students of architecture and archaeology on the necessity to research the entire archive of a project, to experience how projects develop from conception to seasonal implementation, followed by post-excavation preservation and publication of the results. This is well demonstrated in the essay of Al-Ferzly, “A familiar foreign place”: an archival excavation of Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi (pp. 25–52). The archived papers of Grabar reveal the overwhelming importance of diplomacy, the recruitment of staff, procuring resources, and the formation of a core working group in a time of infectious diseases, the Six-Day War, and the race towards a “new archaeology” ripping through the discipline. Al-Ferzly observes that “it is in the midst of the rich interpersonal relationships between archaeologists, researchers, workers, and government officials that the analysis and interpretation of Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi took place” (p. 35). One important change was the broadening of academic roles among the core team members, a practice missing in the Middle East of the 1960s, and the scholarly debates that revised Grabar's original expectations. Rather than a Umayyad Palace (p. 36), Grabar and the team came to the conclusion that Qaṣr al-Ḥayr displayed all the traits of a city-like settlement. Al-Ferzly describes the two main impacts that motivated this change. The first focuses on the “Small Enclosure” which, with hefty walls and internal decoration, was initially interpreted as a caliphal palace. However, in displaying an atypical palatial layout, the function of the Small Enclosure better matched that of a khan meant for commerce and lodging. Furthermore, a freestanding public bathhouse, recognized by Holod while conducting a pioneering ground survey at the behest of Robert McC. Adams, backed the view that the walled enclosures functioned as community spaces. Continuing, al-Ferzly presents a vibrant account of the dispute over the proposition that Qaṣr al-Ḥayr was a madīnah, “proven by its mosque, a seat of government (dar al-‘imara), and public bath” (p. 40). Other scholarly “greats”, however, stuck to the idea of a caliphal residence. The co-authored publication, City in the Desert (Harvard, 1978), landed to heavy criticism, as conventional art history and modern archaeology diverged. Today's middle-ground view proposes that Qaṣr al-Ḥayr's conception may have constituted part of the political and economic reconfiguring of Arḍ al-Shām under the Marwānids, initially palatial in purpose but with the prospect of becoming a madīnah, achieved only in part.
The two essays are richly illustrated by a gallery comprising ten groups, each of five photographs (pp. 53–153), consisting of Site Pictures (mostly wide views), Oleg Grabar and Khalid al-As‘ad (and others), Large Enclosure (architectural views and workers), Small Enclosure (same as previous), Workers (mostly group shots), Palmyra visits, Expedition Team (group shots except that of Holod digging), Small Finds and Site Details, Life at the Site, and Archaeological Methods (pottery sorting, photography from a truck, and surveying). In part they record a necessary make-do approach to work and life on an excavation, common in the 1960s and 70s. Because of the essays, the reader notices a familiarity in each photo, which then directs them towards the explanatory text on the opposite page. The book ends with a bibliography, a useful index, and contributors’ biographies.
Undoubtedly, Gruber and Al-Ferzly have put together a book that intriguingly unravels the mood and times of the Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Sharqī excavations. The intentions, achievements, obstacles, and unexpected outcomes of the project are laid out in full clarity, while a valuable and empathic insight is given into the people of the Syrian countryside and their ways, now tragically decimated.
