Hasan Awad

ʿAwad was born to the Negev Bedouin Hanajira of Beersheba.{{Cite journal|last=Harding|first=G. Lankester|date=1948-10-01|title=Recent Discoveries in Trans-Jordan|url=https://doi.org/10.1179/peq.1948.80.2.118|journal=Palestine Exploration Quarterly|volume=80|issue=2|pages=118–120|doi=10.1179/peq.1948.80.2.118|issn=0031-0328|url-access=subscription}} Though not formally educated in archaeology, he began his training as a teenager, on Flinders Petrie's excavations at Tell Jemmeh (1926–1927). He went on to acquire a reputation as a skilled excavator and the "best archaeological foreman in Jordan",{{Cite book|last=Allegro|first=John Marco|url=|title=The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of Christianity|date=1957|publisher=Criterion Books|location=New York|pages=169|language=en}} working with James Leslie Starkey at Tell ed-Duweir (Lachish, 1932–1939), George Ernest Wright at Tell Balata (Shechem, 1956–1973),{{Cite book|last=Wright|first=George Ernest|url=|title=Shechem: The Biography of a Biblical City|date=1965|publisher=McGraw-Hill|location=New York|pages=35–56|language=en|chapter=The Drew-McCormick Expedition}} the American Schools of Oriental Research at Dhiban (1950–1953),{{Cite journal|last1=Reed|first1=William L.|last2=Winnett|first2=Fred V.|date=1963-12-01|title=A Fragment of an Early Moabite Inscription from Kerak|url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.2307/1355710|journal=Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research|volume=172|issue=172|pages=1–9|doi=10.2307/1355710|jstor=1355710|s2cid=163462959|issn=0003-097X|url-access=subscription}} Henri de Contenson at Tell esh-Shuna (1953),{{Cite journal|last=de Contenson|first=Henri|date=1960|title=Three Soundings in the Jordan Valley|url=http://publication.doa.gov.jo/Publications/ViewChapterPublic/650|journal=Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan|volume=4|pages=12–98}}{{Citation|last1=Jenkins|first1=Emma|title=Past plant use in Jordan as revealed by archaeological and ethnoarchaeological phytolith signatures|date=2011|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/water-life-and-civilisation/past-plant-use-in-jordan-as-revealed-by-archaeological-and-ethnoarchaeological-phytolith-signatures/34053B87D06BB5E9A690F52AF71DC449|work=Water, Life and Civilisation: Climate, Environment and Society in the Jordan Valley|pages=381–400|editor-last=Black|editor-first=Emily|series=International Hydrology Series|place=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-511-97521-9|access-date=2021-02-28|last2=Baker|first2=Ambroise|last3=Elliott|first3=Sarah|editor2-last=Mithen|editor2-first=Steven}} and Diana Kirkbride at Petra (1955–1956).{{Cite journal|last=Kirkbride|first=Diana|date=1960|title=A short Account of the Excavations at Petra in 1955-1956|url=http://publication.doa.gov.jo/Publications/ViewChapterPublic/647|journal=Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan|volume=4|issue=5|pages=117–122}} Harding credited ʿAwad with the discovery of the Lachish letters, and he was the first archaeologist to recognise the importance of the El-Kerak Inscription, which he bought from a Bedouin in Tafilah.

ʿAwad's most frequent collaborator was Gerald Lankester Harding, 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.{{Cite journal|last=Harding|first=Gerald Lankester|date=1945|title=An Iron-Age Tomb at Sahab|journal=Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine|volume=12|pages=92–96}} In 1952, Harding heard that local Bedouin had found a new cave at Qumran Caves, the site of the discovery the Dead Sea Scrolls. ʿAwad joined Harding's expedition to the caves along with Dominique Barthélemy, Józef Milik, Henri de Contenson, Roland de Vaux, Azmi Khalil, and Ibrahim Assula, and was responsible for supervising the party's Bedouin labourers.{{Cite journal|last=Reed|first=William L.|date=1954|title=The Qumrân Caves Expedition of March, 1952|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1355541|journal=Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research|issue=135|pages=8–13|doi=10.2307/1355541|jstor=1355541|s2cid=164186251|issn=0003-097X|url-access=subscription}} John M. Allegro recounted Hasan's role in one episode during the exploration of the caves:

{{Blockquote|text=On another occasion, in the Third Cave, investigation disclosed a great crack in the rock at the back of the cave going down into the depths of the mountain. The Bedouin said that one of their number had already explored it, but to be sure, the foreman of Harding’s party, one Hasan Awad, probably the best archaeological foreman in Jordan, volunteered to go down into the crevice on a rope himself. The opening was only two and a half feet wide, and some way down was an even narrower chimney through which he could barely squeeze. Altogether he dropped some fifty feet before landing on a sandy floor, which bore traces of the earlier visit by the Bedouin but nothing of archaeological value. The haul up was a nightmare for all concerned, as, having no pulleys, the party at the surface had to haul Hasan up, inch by inch, trusting that the rope would not break or be cut by a sharp projection of rock. The half an hour that it took to bring him to the surface seemed like half a day, and

the bravery displayed by this man cannot be accounted too highly.}}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://robeagle.art/harding-his-camera-2017/ Harding & His Camera], documentary film about Harding and ʿAwad

Category:Year of birth uncertain

Category:Year of death unknown

Category:Bedouins

Category:Scientists from Beersheba

Category:Jordanian archaeologists

Category:Arab archaeologists