Meaning‐making and cultural heritage in Jordan: the local community, the contexts and the archaeological sites in Khreibt al‐Suq

This is an ethnographic study based on a fieldwork carried out in Khriebt al‐Suq, in Jordan, in the time between 1 June and 14 September 2004. In this paper, the meaning of archaeological sites is investigated as a ‘structure of understanding and attachments’ (Marris 1986, p. 4), through which individuals interpret the time and the place of the past. The paper suggests that values and meanings that individuals ascribe to material of the past derive their importance from being a reflection of people’s contexts. Throughout the process in which meanings are created and ascribed to archaeological sites, the remains of the past are transformed into such reflections. Archaeological sites in this process are transformed into cultural heritage: something relevant to local communities’ contemporary contexts and cultures. The credibility of cultural heritage is thus derived from its being a ‘reflection’ of these contexts. It is through this ‘reflection’ that people are able to identify themselves with the past and its material.