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The site of Tall al-Umayri is located along the Queen Alia Airport Highway ca 20 km to the south of downtown Amman, Jordan, and ca 10 km northeast of Hesban. It was selected by Andrews University archaeologists for initial exploration because of earlier surface investigations that had pointed to significant Bronze and Iron Age occupation of the site.
Excavations at Tall al-Umayri were started in 1984 and have continued until the present. To a very significant degree the goals and methods of the project built and expanded on those incubated by the Heshbon Expedition, including the commitment to studying the site and its surrounding region as a multi-millennial complex unity using best practices drawn from both biblical and anthropolgoical archaeology.
To date ten field seasons have been carried out at Tall al-Umayri. These investigations have uncovered a rural village and burial grounds from the Early Bronze Age, a fortified city from the Middle and Late Bronze Age, and Early Iron Age rural village and an Ammonite citadel. An intensive survey of the site's hinterlands has brought to light dozens of rural client villages from the time of the Ammonites.
Tall al-Umayri was the first site to be excavated by Heshbon Expedition veterns under the auspices of the Madaba Plans Project. Cor-directors of the current excavations are Larry Herr and Doug Clark. Past co-directors of the project inlude Larry Geraty, Oystein LaBianca and Randy Younker.
