Al-Baleed has obviously been excavated in the past. Its first official excavations go back to the 1950's. I won't bore you with details but there were other major excavations in the 1970's & 1980's. The Citadel (or castle or government building) & the largest mosque (so far) were revealed during those times. Also, Al-Baleed has been named a UNESCO (United Nations, Educational, Scientific, & Cultural Organization) World Heritage Site, which is a big deal and a great honor. Other UNESCO sites that you might have heard of include, Taj Mahal, Petra (shown in Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade), Angkor Wat, Abu Simbel, Machu Picchu, etc.
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1010
When Juris dug here in 2011-2012 the main goal was to find the basic "boarder" of the city. So they excavated the outer walls all the way around the city. Now something most people don't realize is that when you visit a lot of these ancient sites you are actually looking at reconstruction (at least in most cases.) If we tried to get tourists interested in archaeology & showed them what we find their biggest response would either be "meh" or "huh". But when you can do some reconstruction this gives the non-archaeologist a visual of what things would have looked like. Now, like everything else, there are pro's & cons to reconstruction but as far as tourism goes it is a must. Al-Baleed had a team from Italy come in and do a lot of the reconstruction. So, keep in mind that is what you see in the photo's we are all posting. These walls didn't come out of the ground like this, they look like big piles or rocks when we find them. ;-) The interior of the site has not been excavated or reconstructed, mostly. Our on-going goal is to excavate those areas & eventually have other places reconstructed for tourism purposes.
Another thing to keep in mind is that archaeologists are not omnipotent or clairvoyant so we don't actually know what we have until we have a lot of it. There are some basic things known about the site but there is still a lot to learn and discover, this is our main goal: to establish what we have, when it was in use & why it was here. Just like journalism we ask the "who, what, when, where" questions. To make things more complicated here at Al-Baleed there are many "layers" or time periods of occupation. It general if it was a good place to live at one time it will be again, so more people come & more people and then more expansion, just like modern cities. So what we have here are cities on top of cities in some places and in other places sort of suburb areas.
It is an incredibly large & fascinating place, our current running joke is that our students, students will still be digging at Al-Baleed after we are gone.
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1010
When Juris dug here in 2011-2012 the main goal was to find the basic "boarder" of the city. So they excavated the outer walls all the way around the city. Now something most people don't realize is that when you visit a lot of these ancient sites you are actually looking at reconstruction (at least in most cases.) If we tried to get tourists interested in archaeology & showed them what we find their biggest response would either be "meh" or "huh". But when you can do some reconstruction this gives the non-archaeologist a visual of what things would have looked like. Now, like everything else, there are pro's & cons to reconstruction but as far as tourism goes it is a must. Al-Baleed had a team from Italy come in and do a lot of the reconstruction. So, keep in mind that is what you see in the photo's we are all posting. These walls didn't come out of the ground like this, they look like big piles or rocks when we find them. ;-) The interior of the site has not been excavated or reconstructed, mostly. Our on-going goal is to excavate those areas & eventually have other places reconstructed for tourism purposes.
Another thing to keep in mind is that archaeologists are not omnipotent or clairvoyant so we don't actually know what we have until we have a lot of it. There are some basic things known about the site but there is still a lot to learn and discover, this is our main goal: to establish what we have, when it was in use & why it was here. Just like journalism we ask the "who, what, when, where" questions. To make things more complicated here at Al-Baleed there are many "layers" or time periods of occupation. It general if it was a good place to live at one time it will be again, so more people come & more people and then more expansion, just like modern cities. So what we have here are cities on top of cities in some places and in other places sort of suburb areas.
It is an incredibly large & fascinating place, our current running joke is that our students, students will still be digging at Al-Baleed after we are gone.
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