The results of the ACTECH Project provide a new baseline of study for future research on Near Eastern architecture, but also more generally on building techniques and the transmission of knowledge, creating the possibility for contacts with other disciplines such as engineering, history of science, materials science and ethnology. (i) Contrary to the traditional model of architectural analysis, which compares structures according to style and form, the project’s research methodology created a dialogue between stratigraphy and technology in order to propose new interpretations. (ii) The literature has rarely considered analysis of building techniques in the Near East, especially those considered “minor,” from the perspective of the archaeology of architecture: in this sense the project’s results fill a gap and provide raw data on the wall-building techniques and the construction of specific building systems such as arches and their particular characteristics during different historical periods. (iii) The research has highlighted the role of the parabolic arch as a building system present and widespread in rural northern Jordan and not only in sporadic examples of prestige architecture or fortifications. The limited knowledge of this system in the existing literature has opened new paths for research on contacts with the Mesopotamian building tradition, from which this structural element probably derived and which represents an indispensable interpretive tool for subsequent analysis of the transmission of building methods drawing from a still relatively unexplored cultural basin. (iv) The ACTECH Project has exploited the potential of discipline-specific techniques of analysis and investigation in a particular context (local scale), producing data capable of contributing to reflections which operate on a broader level (global scale) and are necessarily interdisciplinary.
At the socio-economic level, on the one hand the ACTECH Project has developed best practices for the documentation and protection of built heritage, and on the other hand it has laid the foundation for stimulating development in specific local contexts such as a village in northern Jordan.
