The Southern Transjordan Edomite Plateau and the Dead Sea Rift Valley by Burton MacDonald

Author:Burton MacDonald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Ancient / General
ISBN: 9781782978336
Publisher: Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, LLC
Published: 2015-03-11T16:00:00+00:00

AZ-ZURRABA

Az-Zurraba is located at the northwestern edge of the modern town of Wadi Musa. Excavations at the site in the 1980s uncovered pottery workshops and five pottery kilns dated to the late first/early second, late third/early fourth and midsixth century AD (`Amr 1991; `Amr and al-Moumani 1999). In the process of land clearance in preparation for building, two additional kilns were brought to light in 1997. They were cleared and recorded in the same year (`Amr and al-Moumani 1999). From the above, this is additional evidence for continuity and development of Nabataean traditions into the sixth century.

UDHRUH EXCAVATION AND SURVEYS

In four seasons of work between 1980 and 1985, Killick both excavated the site of Udhruh/Augustopolis, 15 km to the east of Petra, and carried out survey work in its environs (A. Killick 1982; 1983a–b; 1986; 1989; M. Killick 1990). He determined that there was a Nabataean settlement at the site.

Relative to Roman presence there and with respect to Killick’s work, Kennedy and Falahat posit the building of a Roman fort, essentially a quadrilateral (Killick 1983c, 113, fig. 2; Kennedy and Falahat 2008, 154, fig. 2), at Udhruh shortly after AD 106, in the same location where a previous Nabataean one had been. When the surveyors arrived to establish a base for VI Ferrata around the late third–early fourth century AD, the defenses of this earlier Roman fort had been both neglected and extensively robbed. There was, thus, the need to rebuild the ruined fortifications and make significant modifications (Kennedy and Falahat 2008, 163). A building inscription discovered outside its west gate in 2005 dates from the earliest years of the fourth century (overall dimensions of the stone: 165 cm long; 97 cm high; and 42 cm deep; height of the letters: 5.5–6.5 cm maximum). It indicates that the fortress was rebuilt c. AD 303–304. Kennedy and Falahat think that it was where Castra Legionis VI Ferratae was stationed (2008).

Personnel from the Department of Antiquities have recently excavated at Udhruh (SAAS Site 150) (Abu Danah et al. 2010a–b) (Plate 20).

Killick’s survey work in the area of Udhruh determined that there was a peak in settlement during the Nabataean period. This peak is indicated in the statistical distribution of the coins found. The oldest coins date to the early first century BC while the majority of the Nabataean coins date to Aretas IV (c. 9 BC–AD 40) (Killick 1990, 251). Thus, the Udhruh region saw a parallel development to that of the Petra region (see below and Tholbecq 2013, 299).

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