Almost two weeks ago, a colleague messaged me with the bad news that Donald Whitcomb had passed away. An obituary by Katia Cytryn-Silverman has since come through on the Agade mailing list. Since I heard the news, I’ve been reflecting on what Don meant for me, and for the community of Islamic archaeologists generally. I thought it would be appropriate to share some of those thoughts here.
Don was a key figure in the development of Islamic archaeology as a discipline, a scholar who was well-versed in the art historical questions that had formed its early basis but who pursued a range of questions that went far beyond this. From his early work in Iran, Don went on to direct excavations at the port of Qusayr al-Qadim in Egypt, ‘Aqaba (Early Islamic Ayla) in southern Jordan, Hadir (Early Islamic Qinnasrin) in northern Syria. and his most recent projects at Khirbat al-Mafjar in Palestine and Khirbat al-Karak/Tel Bet Yerah in northern Israel.
Naturally, Don’s work was a major influence on my own long before I actually met him. Although his project at ‘Aqaba had ended nearly 15 years before I began working in southern Jordan in 2009 (indeed, the first season of Kristoffer Damgaard’s renewed excavations at Ayla had occurred the year before), I passed the site of his excavations, Early Islamic Ayla, many times while walking along the Corniche Street on our weekends in ‘Aqaba that first season. Somewhat embarrassingly, it wasn’t until several years later that I actually went inside the site, rather than just looking in from the gate.
Large 8th century building in Ayla (‘Aqaba, Jordan) identified as the city’s Congregational Mosque by Whitcomb’s excavations in 1993.
In many ways, these excavations defined Islamic archaeology in southern Jordan. Certainly, Don was among the first archaeologists to intentionally excavate an Islamic period site in the south. Ayla, as an active port city, is, of course, not a typical site for the region. The ceramic assemblage includes glazed imports from Egypt, Arabia, Iraq, and China rarely, if ever, found elsewhere in southern Jordan. Don’s publications on the site, however, also focused on its more mundane aspects, like the simple, hand-made pottery produced there in the 10th or 11th century. Even today, ceramic reports of Islamic sites often bemoan the fact that the art historical origins of the discipline led to a focus on glazed luxury wares that has made it more difficult to understand average people (and average sites); Don’s work stands as an early corrective to this bias, and one that has since been widely adopted. From a personal perspective, Don’s approach of giving equal weight to all of these forms of evidence, from the most spectacular to the most mundane, has been an inspiration for my own work, and the Ayla excavations continue to be a critical source for helping me think through my work on Early Islamic Humayma.
Late 10th century AD Chinese glazed stoneware jar found in the Pavilion Building at Ayla. Currently on display in the Jordan Museum, ‘Amman.
It wasn’t long after this initial encounter with his work that I first met Don, the following November at the 2010 ASOR Annual Meeting in Atlanta. I was there for the first academic presentation of my graduate career, a poster based on my MA thesis. I ran into Don at the book displays, and we spoke for a few minutes. I was, of course, already familiar with his work, and I remember him not being exactly what I expected. My first impressions were of a very friendly and approachable man with formidable facial hair.
Many years later, in early 2018, I was living at the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem as a pre-doctoral fellow finishing up my dissertation, and Don passed through on his way to his excavations at Khirbat al-Karak/Tel Bet Yerah. We spoke often when he was at the AIAR and it turned out my initial impressions had been correct. He was a very friendly, generous scholar, and he invited me to come up to the site and take a tour of the excavations. I did make my way up to the site, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, in the company of a few other fellows. By then, he wasn’t able to move around as well as he had when we first met, but he was still out there at the site with the assistance of a walker, happy to tell us what they were up to that day.
Khirbat al-Karak/Tel Bet Yerah on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Don and his team can be seen in the distance, excavating the Early Islamic settlement.
A few years later, I was publishing a paper that dealt, in part, with the dating of a lamp type commonly found in the south. We had excavated fragments of them in Faynan, but I was hoping to include a photo of a complete one, so I reached out to Don to ask if there were any from the excavations at Ayla. Without hesitation, Don sent photos of two and told me to feel free to use them. It seems like a small thing, but as many archaeologists can attest, it’s not something everyone would do. Certainly, it’s part of how I’ll remember Don: a towering, immensely influential figure in the field, but someone who never lost his excitement for archaeology or his generosity and willingness to help a younger scholar out. He will be greatly missed.