AL-NIMER FAMILY VISUAL ARCHIVE

The Album

A visual journey through generations of life, agriculture, and growth in Fasayel.

01 · The Ancient Roman Pool Discovery

The Ancient Roman Pool Discovery

Eight metres of soil. One extraordinary discovery.

In the 1970s, the Al-Nimer family uncovered an Ancient Roman Pool buried beneath eight metres of soil in Fasayel — one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in the northern Jordan Valley. Moved entirely by hand alongside neighbours and European volunteers, the excavation revealed a Roman-era water reservoir that once served the valley. Today, the pool is preserved by the family as a heritage and archaeological site.

Excavating the Roman Pool — Saad (right) and Samsam (left) on the bulldozers, 1970s.
The dig in motion — eight meters of soil to move before the stones appeared.
Saad at work in the excavation site of the Roman Pool.
Roman Pool excavation — bulldozer, dump truck and crew in the dust.
Samsam Al-Nimer on the loader, filling truck 599-509 at the Roman Pool dig.
Samsam Al-Nimer on the yellow loader, working beside the red Scania at the Roman Pool excavation.
On the dig site — the orange truck, the loader, and the men who ran them.
Samsam Al-Nimer at the Roman Pool excavation site.
Samsam Al-Nimer at the controls of the CAT bulldozer during the Roman Pool excavation.
Workers on the CAT D5N bulldozer during the Roman Pool excavation.
Loaders and a dump truck working the Roman Pool excavation site.
Abu Khaled by a spring during the late-1970s excavation works in Fasayel.
02 · The People Who Built It

The People Who Built It

Faces, hands, and a century of work.

Portraits, memories, and the labour behind them — the family who gave Fasayel its soul, and the work of their hands that built it season by season.

Silham Al-Nimer holding a hunting rifle in Fasayel — late 1950s.
Brothers — Samsam (left) and Saad (right) Al-Nimer leaning on truck 599-509.
Saad Al-Nimer in the cab of the red Scania truck.
Teenage Saad Al-Nimer leaning on truck 599-509 with friends and family.
Samsam Al-Nimer standing in the orchard fields of Fasayel.
Saad Al-Nimer as a boy with his little goat — Fasayel.
A farmer in Fasayel back in the 1970's.
Samsam Al-Nimer in the Fasayel wheat fields — late 1970s.
Abu Khaled — generous, tireless, family in everything but name.
Abu Khaled (right) with farmers— closest of all to the family.
Abu Khaled with his dog — a Fasayel kind of joy.
A shepherd with his flock on the Fasayel lands — the animal life of the valley, 1960s–70s.
03 · What the Soil Gives Back

What the Soil Gives Back

The land repays the patient.

Watermelons, eggplants, greenhouse crops and open fields — what Fasayel produces today, under the same Jordan Valley sun.

Eggplant fields at dusk, the Jordan Valley hills catching the last sun.
Eggplant and cabbage fields at dawn — a worker tending the rows in the distance.
Eggplant rows running out toward the Dead Sea — Fasayel at dusk.
Saad Al-Nimer standing in the watermelon field, the Jordan Valley hills behind him at sunset.
Saad Al-Nimer in the watermelon field — the center-pivot and Medjoul palms behind.
Watermelon fields stretching to the Jordan Valley hills at sunset.
Saad Al-Nimer in the eggplant fields, the valley softening into dusk.
Watermelon harvest in full swing — the crew loading crates under the mountains.
Saad Al-Nimer in the watermelon field at sunset — Fasayel, today.
Watermelon land being prepared for planting — tractors at the edge, Medjoul palms and the Jordan Valley hills beyond.
The other side of the watermelon land before seeding — the center-pivot framing the sun over the hills.
Watermelons gathered in rows at harvest — the sun rising over the Jordan Valley hills.
04 · Three Thousand Palms

Three Thousand Palms

Planted in 2015. Still growing.

The Medjoul grove — from the first seedlings in the red soil to the mature orchard that produces over 200 tons of dates each September. A living field, still expanding — each mature palm gives rise to new offshoots, raised in the farm's own nursery and replanted across the land.

Down the avenue of a Medjoul date orchard at first light — Fasayel, today.
Saad Al-Nimer walking the Medjoul orchard at dusk.
Saad among the palms — three generations of the same patch of soil.
Saad Al-Nimer checking the orchard, a young palm shoot in the foreground.
Acoustic sensor wired into a palm's crown — early red palm weevil detection protecting the orchard.
Young Medjoul palms in the red Fasayel soil — the orchard, growing into itself.
The New Holland 70-66S hauling young Medjoul palms out to the field — May 2015.
Newly planted Medjoul seedlings staked across the open Fasayel land — 2015.
A young Medjoul shoot taking hold in the Jordan Valley soil — 2015.
Medjoul palm seedlings unwrapped and prepared before planting — Fasayel, 2015.
Inside a mature Medjoul orchard — drip lines running between the rows.
Saad walking the land in the early years — young Medjoul shoots taking root in the Fasayel soil.
05 · The Valley That Raised Us

The Valley That Raised Us

One valley. One century.

The land itself — hills, sky, spring and soil. The horizon Fasayel has worked under since 1890.

Fasayel — the land itself, before the green returned.
Fasayel landscape during the years of hard work — the New Holland combine resting in the fields, 1960s–70s.
Fasayel's open land in the era of Fahmi's sons — greenery returning to the valley, 1960s–70s.
Looking down on Fasayel from the western hills — the valley opening below in spring.
The view from above Ras Al-Ein toward the Jordan Valley below.
The Ras Al-Ein mountains north of Fasayel — green pastures running up to the western hills in spring.
The Ras Al-Ein valley at dusk — the mountains north of Fasayel.
Ras Al-Ein spring running between the boulders at the head of the valley.
A lone tree above the green floor of the Fasayel valley in spring.
One of Qasem Al-Nimer's water channels passing beneath the trees at Ras Al-Ein.
The cliffs above Fasayel after the rains — green returning across the valley floor.
Ras Al-Ein spring in the shade of the trees — clear water, stone, and pasture.

Read the story behind the archive.

One family · One valley · Four generations

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