Vila uses sabbatical to excavate ancient churches
Posted on Friday, November 24, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/News/42528/
SILOAM SPRINGS While Dave Vila finds excitement in archaeological excavations of Byzantine and Islamic artifacts, his childrens excitement comes from more mundane discoveries.
There were sand dunes, rock caves and cliffs, wide open spaces. My boys found a dead camel and lots of bones everywhere, Vila said. There are also archaeological things there, but hey, to my boys a dead camel was a whole lot cooler.
Vila and his family are spending the year in Amman, Jordan. While his children are excited by anything cool, Vilas interests are narrow, specifically to the archaeological excavation of Byzantine and early Islamic artifacts.
Vila, associate professor of religion and philosophy, is taking a year-long sabbatical from John Brown University to teach one class per semester at Jordan University, finish the excavation of five churches and write, edit and publish a volume about those churches.
Vila received the Fulbright Scholar Grant he applied for in 2005. JBU started a Jordan summer studies program, and Vila began his sabbatical with 20 students in Jordan for seven weeks this past summer.
It went really well, he said. I think the students had a great time.
Over the summer, while the JBU students were participating in the program, he said they could see missiles and hear bombs exploding in southern Lebanon every day, as visible and audible effects of the war between Israel and Lebanon.
Vila has been traveling to Jordan for many years.
The people of Jordan are just wonderful. They are very generous and hospitable, he said. The culture here also values people more than things or time, and I tend to agree that this is a good thing.
Jordan is an Arab country in the Middle East. It is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south and Israel to the west.
He said unfortunately there are still McDonalds, Burger Kings and Pizza Huts scattered throughout the town. The one upside to this is that there are also five Starbucks around Amman, and this is a good thing, he said.
Ive been coming to Jordan just about every two years since 1990, he said. In the summer of that year I began working with the Abila archaeological project in the north of Jordan excavating the ancient Decapolis city of Abila.
Abila was inhabited from 3500 BC until about AD 1700. The city covers approximately one square kilometer.
(It ) has just about every type of archaeological feature that one would want lots of tombs, water tunnels, a bath complex, Roman roads, five churches and lots of domestic buildings, he said. We excavate on even-dated years.
Vila said the buildings are fairly well intact. Some of the churches have columns in place, floors with mosaic and marble tiles are visible, and some even have outer walls in place.
It does, though, take a bit of imaginative work to reconstruct buildings that fell long ago, he said.
Jordan has proved to be a good working environment for Vila.
Most of the people are very, very friendly, he said. They are quick to tell me that they hate my government, but that they love the American people.
Jordan has 5. 8 million residents.
He understands that his ability to speak to Jordanians in Arabic helps while visiting there.
Vila feels comfortable about being Jordan.
The political climate in Jordan is somewhat stable, though there is a lot going on in the region that is worrying, he said.
Jordans government is a constitutional monarchy, which gives executive authority to a king.
The war between Israel and Lebanon last summer has proven the greatest indicator of political tumult and disagreement in the volatile area, he said.
Another problem, more specifically for an archaeologist, are looters in the area that rob the tombs and excavation sites.
In 1996 we returned and found that a 12-foot long column made of solid marble had been stolen, he said. How they got it out of the site we still dont know. Stuff gets stolen from the site regularly, unfortunately.
Vila hopes to complete the writing and editing of his book within a year.
The volume will contain a chapter for each of the five churches by different authors. Vila will write the introduction, a chapter on the church he has focused on, a chapter on the transition to Muslim rule in the region and the consequences of that on the churches.
He will also edit the project.
Vila said his wife and three boys are living in a comfortable apartment, and are not having any problems with safety or anything.
There is a little homesickness here and there, but nothing an occasional trip to Starbucks cant cure, he said.
His two oldest boys are being homeschooled by his wife, who is trained as a teacher.
He wants the family to spend a few weeks in Egypt after the new year.
He hopes the attractions in Egypt will only add to their Middle Eastern excitement of ancient church excavations, looters, writing and publishing a book and dead camels.