Service to ACOR: Conservation Technician (2004–2020)
Naif Zaban was the Conservation Technician for the ACOR Conservation Cooperative (ACC). He began work with ACOR in 1990 and served on a full-time basis from 2004–2020.
Naif first became involved with archaeology as a young man because he lived near the Amman Citadel. He became a core part of the technical team for the ACOR Temple of Hercules project, which began in 1990. Naif was also an integral part of ACOR’s Petra Church excavations starting in 1992, and he was even a witness to the discovery of the Petra papyri in early December 1993. He continued to work in the field on the North Ridge project and due to the extensive amount of ceramic material uncovered there in the two Nabataean tombs under the Ridge Church he started working continuously in the ACOR lab to restore the pottery beginning in 1998.
In 2007, the ACOR Conservation Cooperative (ACC) was created in order to help other projects in Jordan meet their conservation needs and benefit from Naif’s skills. Most of his ACC efforts take place in the ACOR Conservation Lab. Since the inception of this Cooperative, Naif has conserved material from more than 40 projects (including ACOR’s own) and for several museums.
