Hasan ʿAwad al-Qatshan (born 1912–13)
was a
Bedouin archaeologist associated with the
Jordanian Department of Antiquities The Department of Antiquities is a government department in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan with responsibility for archaeological research and cultural heritage management. It is part of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
The department was ...
. Working with his partner
Gerald Lankester Harding
Gerald Lankester Harding (8 December 1901 – 11 February 1979) was a British archaeologist who was the director of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan from 1936 to 1956. His tenure spanned the period in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were disc ...
and other western archaeologists, he played a role in a number of major discoveries, including those of the
Lachish letters
The Lachish Letters or ''Lachish Ostraca'', sometimes called ''Hoshaiah Letters'', are a series of letters written in carbon ink containing Canaanite inscriptions in Ancient Hebrew on clay ostraca. The letters were discovered at the excavations ...
and the
Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...
.
Archaeological career
ʿAwad was born to the
Negev Bedouin
The Negev Bedouin ( ar, بدو النقب, ''Badū an-Naqab''; he, הבדואים בנגב, ''HaBedu'im BaNegev'') are traditionally pastoral nomadic Arab tribes (Bedouin), who until the later part of the 19th century would wander between Sau ...
Hanajira
Al-Hanajira (also Arab al-Hanajira, al-Hanajra or el-Hanajreh) was one of the five principal Bedouin tribes inhabiting the Negev Desert prior to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Its territory stretched north-south between Deir al-Balah and Gaza and e ...
of
Beersheba
Beersheba or Beer Sheva, officially Be'er-Sheva ( he, בְּאֵר שֶׁבַע, ''Bəʾēr Ševaʿ'', ; ar, بئر السبع, Biʾr as-Sabʿ, Well of the Oath or Well of the Seven), is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. ...
.
Though not formally educated in archaeology, he began his training as a teenager, on
Flinders Petrie's excavations at
Tell Jemmeh
Tell Jemmeh ( ar, تل جمه), also known in Hebrew as Tel Gamma (תל גמה) or Tel Re'im (תל רעים), is a prominent mound, or tell, located in the region of the northwestern Negev and the southern coastal plain of Israel, about 12 k ...
(1926–1927).
He went on to acquire a reputation as a skilled excavator
and the "best archaeological foreman in Jordan",
working with
James Leslie Starkey
James Leslie Starkey (3 January 1895 – 10 January 1938) was a noted British archaeologist of the ancient Near East and Palestine in the period before the Second World War. He was the chief excavator of the first archaeological expedition ...
at
Tell ed-Duweir
Lachish ( he, לכיש; grc, Λαχίς; la, Lachis) was an ancient Canaanite and Israelite city in the Shephelah ("lowlands of Judea") region of Israel, on the South bank of the Lakhish River, mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. Th ...
(Lachish, 1932–1939),
George Ernest Wright
George Ernest Wright (September 5, 1909 – August 29, 1974), was a leading Old Testament scholar and biblical archaeologist. An expert in Ancient Near Eastern archaeology, he was especially known for his work in the study and dating of pottery. ...
at
Tell Balata
Tell Balata ( ar, تل بلاطة) is the site of the remains of an ancient Canaanite and Israelite city, identified since 1913 with the Biblical city of Shechem. It is located in the West Bank. The built-up area of Balata, a Palestinian villag ...
(Shechem, 1956–1973), the
American Schools of Oriental Research
The American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR), founded in 1900 as the American School of Oriental Study and Research in Palestine, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization based in Alexandria, Virginia which supports the research and teaching of ...
at
Dhiban
Dhiban, (Arabic: ''Ḏiʾbān'') known to the Moabites as Dibon ( Moabite: *; Hebrew: ''Dīḇōn''), is a Jordanian town located in Madaba Governorate, approximately 70 kilometres south of Amman and east of the Dead Sea. Previously nomadic, ...
(1950–1953),
Henri de Contenson
250px, Henri de Contenson
Henri de Contenson (4 March 1926 – 8 September 2019) was a French archaeologist and was the Research Director at the CNRS, The Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (National Center for Scientific Research), a ...
at
Tell esh-Shuna
Tell may refer to:
* Tell (archaeology), a type of archaeological site
* Tell (name), a name used as a given name and a surname
* Tell (poker), a subconscious behavior that can betray information to an observant opponent
Arts, entertainment, an ...
(1953), and
Diana Kirkbride
Diana Victoria Warcup Kirkbride-Helbæk, (22 October 1915 – 13 August 1997) was a British archaeologist who specialised in the prehistory of south-west Asia.
Biography
She attended Wycombe Abbey School in High Wycombe and served in the Women ...
at
Petra
Petra ( ar, ٱلْبَتْرَاء, Al-Batrāʾ; grc, Πέτρα, "Rock", Nabataean: ), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu or Raqēmō, is an historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. It is adjacent to the mountain of Ja ...
(1955–1956). Harding credited ʿAwad with the discovery of the
Lachish letters
The Lachish Letters or ''Lachish Ostraca'', sometimes called ''Hoshaiah Letters'', are a series of letters written in carbon ink containing Canaanite inscriptions in Ancient Hebrew on clay ostraca. The letters were discovered at the excavations ...
,
and he was the first archaeologist to recognise the importance of the
El-Kerak Inscription
The Kerak Inscription, also known as the Kemoshyat inscription, was discovered in 1958 in Jordan, near Wadi el-Kerak. It is a basalt inscription fragment measuring high by wide. The inscription has been dated to the late ninth century BC. The i ...
, which he bought from a Bedouin in
Tafilah
Tafilah ( ar, الطفيلة, 'aṭ-Ṭafīlah, ), also spelled Tafila, is a town with a population of 27,559 people in southern Jordan, located southwest of Amman. It is the capital of Tafilah Governorate. It is well known for having green ga ...
.
ʿAwad's most frequent collaborator was
Gerald Lankester Harding
Gerald Lankester Harding (8 December 1901 – 11 February 1979) was a British archaeologist who was the director of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan from 1936 to 1956. His tenure spanned the period in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were disc ...
, who he first met at Tell Jemmeh.
They were partners for nearly twenty years and lived together in
Amman, where Harding was the director of the Department of Antiquities.
ʿAwad conducted a excavated a number of sites in Jordan on Harding's behalf,
including the Iron Age tombs at
Sahab. In 1952, Harding heard that local Bedouin had found a new cave at
Qumran Caves
Qumran Caves are a series of caves, both natural and artificial, found around the archaeological site of Qumran in the Judaean Desert. It is in these caves that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.
Israel Nature and Parks Authority took over ...
, the site of the discovery the
Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...
. ʿAwad joined Harding's expedition to the caves along with
Dominique Barthélemy
Jean-Dominique Barthélemy OP (16 May 1921, Pallet — 10 February 2002, Freiburg), was a emeritus French professor, Dominican priest and biblical scholar.[Józef Milik
Józef Tadeusz Milik (Seroczyn, Poland, 24 March 1922 – Paris, 6 January 2006) was a Polish biblical scholar and a Catholic priest, researcher of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) through the deserts of Judea/Jordan, and translator and editor of th ...]
, Henri de Contenson,
Roland de Vaux
Roland Guérin de Vaux (17 December 1903 – 10 September 1971) was a French Dominican priest who led the Catholic team that initially worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was the director of the Ecole Biblique, a French Catholic Theological S ...
,
Azmi Khalil Azmi may refer to:
Given name Arab people
* Azmi Bishara (born 1956), Arab politician
* Azmi Mikati (born 1972), Lebanese businessman
* Azmi Nassar (1957–2007), Israeli football manager
* Jabir Al-Azmi, Kuwaiti MP
* Khalil Azmi (born 1964), ret ...
, and
Ibrahim Assula
Ibrahim ( ar, إبراهيم, links=no ') is the Arabic name for Abraham, a Biblical patriarch and prophet in Islam.
For the Islamic view of Ibrahim, see Abraham in Islam.
Ibrahim may also refer to:
* Ibrahim (name), a name (and list of people w ...
, and was responsible for supervising the party's Bedouin labourers.
John M. Allegro
John Marco Allegro (17 February 1923 – 17 February 1988) was an English archaeologist and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar. He was a populariser of the Dead Sea Scrolls through his books and radio broadcasts. He was the editor of some of the most fam ...
recounted Hasan's role in one episode during the exploration of the caves:
References
{{Reflist
External links
Harding & His Camera documentary film about Harding and ʿAwad
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death unknown
Bedouins
Scientists from Beersheba
Jordanian archaeologists