Milestone: Patricia Maynor Bikai (1943–2025)

COURTESY AMERICAN CENTER OF RESEARCH

Across more than four decades, Patricia Maynor Bikai worked on archaeological projects in Lebanon, Egypt, Cyprus, and most intensely in Jordan. When her husband Pierre Bikai became Director of the American Center of Research (ACOR) in Amman in 1991, Patricia took on many roles, including Associate Director.

Patricia’s career began in Lebanon, where she meticulously documented the complex ceramic sequence from the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre. This led to her publication The Pottery of Tyre (Aris & Phillips, 1978), which remains a standard scholarly reference.

At ACOR, the Bikais undertook myriad excavation, restoration, and publication projects, especially in Petra. Patricia spearheaded the comprehensive volume The Petra Church (ACOR, 2001), which published the excavations from the famous sixth-century church uncovered by ACOR in the early 1990s. Patricia also edited the first of five volumes on The Petra Papyri (ACOR, 2002), which deal with the fragile scrolls found inside the church that revealed details about daily life in Byzantine Petra.

In 1999, she turned her attention to the hillside above the Petra Church and there excavated the North Ridge Church and the nearby Blue Chapel. In the early 2000s, she initiated a project in Bayda and uncovered an amazing cache of architectural sculptures that adorned a Nabatean banqueting hall.

When I moved to Jordan in 2006 to become Pierre’s successor, I was well aware of all that Patricia had accomplished. I will always admire her tenacity and passion for archaeology but equally her abiding loyalty to friends and family.