AMMAN — The
Italian embassy on Sunday handed over to Jordan prehistoric archaeological
finds discovered by the Italian Mission in the Hisma Basin and in
Wadi Rum.
اضافة اعلان
The handover
of the ancient items took place at a ceremony attended by Italian Ambassador to
Jordan Fabio Cassese, Acting Director General of the Department of Antiquities
(DoA) Ahmad Juma’a Alshami and the deputy head of Aqaba Special Economic Zone
Authority (
ASEZA), Sharhabeel Madi.
According
to a statement by the Italian embassy, the mission started over forty years ago
in Wadi Rum by Edoardo Borzatti, a professor at the University of Florence and
his team. He was succeeded by Luca Pollarolo.
The mission
has made “extraordinary discoveries that testify the prehistory and history of
the region from about 1.2 million years ago until 3600 BC. The Italian scholars
succeeded in collecting and analyzing about 40,000 objects from the Hishma
Basin, including stone tools, anthropomorphic statues from the Chalcolithic
period, graffiti representing humans, animals, hunting scenes and everyday
life.”
Some of
these finds were in Italy for study reasons and were then returned to Jordan
during a ceremony held at the Ad-Diseh Research House founded by Prof.
Borzatti. The embassy said, quoting Ambassador Cassese, who added: “Italy thus
confirms its long-standing commitment to the protection of cultural heritage in
the world and in particular in Jordan”.
“We are
convinced,” the diplomat said, “that the cultural identity of a people is one
of the main drivers for integral human development. Many concrete actions can
be carried out, for example, in the field of sustainable tourism. We agreed a
joint action with the Jordanian government, signing in recent days the
Subsidiary Cooperation Agreement valid for 2021-2023”.
The storage
and conservation of the archaeological finds is now the full responsibility of
DoA and ASEZA, “which in recent years have involved the Italian Embassy in Amman
and UNESCO for the valorization of this extraordinary heritage, an essential
part for the culture of Southern Jordan.”
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