Dolmen in Jordan

Dolmen at Johfiyeh

Dolmens in Jordan are mainly concentrated in the north-western half of the country, where in the north, across the border, they connect to the megalithic complexes on the Golan in Syria .

Jordanian dolmens date from the early Bronze Age , i.e. they set in the early 4th millennium BC. A and were built up to the turn of the 2nd millennium. They are on average three meters long and one meter wide and high. Some reach seven meters in length. East of the Jordan, they were the most common funeral items ever. A distinction is made between two types of these elements, namely dolmen necropolises of the settled and burial towers (tower tombs) of the nomadic population of the steppe areas. The dolmens are concentrated in the Dead Sea area , along the Jordan Valley, around Irbid , and in the triangle between Samra, Mafraq and Zarqa in the north-west of the country. The Tower Tombs, however, cluster in the desert and steppe areas east of Maʿan in the southwest, in Wadi Rum and in the Harra north of Azraq . There are over a thousand of them on Jebel Mutawwaq , more than 150 on the northern slope of the 800 m high Nebo . They mostly arose as necropolises above Copper and Bronze Age settlements, whereas the towers were built near small settlements that were used for livestock farming. The population of a settlement on Mutawwaq, which is topographically and chronologically linked to the dolmen field, is estimated to be 1700.

There are many dolmens in the villages of Johfiyeh and Natifah in the far north, southwest and west of Irbid, respectively. A large number are in the vicinity of Madaba , such as Al Faiha, 10 km west of Madaba in Wadi Jadid. There are more than 40 dolmens in the wadi (12 of them in very good condition), the rest of which are likely damaged by earthquakes. There are two dolmens in Hezbone , most of them found in Zarqa Ma'in near Al-Murayghat . The large dolmen field of Ala-Safat is located near Al-Damiyah , a village in the Jordan Valley .

There are some menhirs , stone circles , rows of stones and cup stones .

literature

Myriam Ababsa: Atlas of Jordan. History, Territories and Society , Beirut 2013.
Andrea Polcaro , Vito Polcaro: Early Bronze Age Dolmens in Jordan and their Orientations , in: Mediterranean Archeology and Archaeometry 6,3 (2006) 165–171.
Andrea Polcaro: Jebel Mutawwaq Dolmens: Cult of Ancestors in EB I Wadi Az-Zarqa Valley , in: Licia Romano (Ed.): Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of the Archeology of the Ancient Near East , Vol. 2: Excavations, surveys and restorations. Reports on recent field archeology in the Near East , Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 553-565.
Sibylle von Reden: The Megalithic Cultures. DuMont, Cologne 1978, 1982, ISBN 3-7701-1055-2 .
Gajus Scheltema: Megalithic Jordan: An Introduction and Field Guide Amman, American Center of Oriental Research, 2008. ISBN 9789957854331
Udo Worschech: Cromlechs, dolmens and menhirs. Comparative studies of prehistoric and early historical burial sites in Jordan (= contributions to the research of ancient Moabitis (Arḍ el-Kerak). Volume 2). Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2002, ISBN 3-631-38770-9 .

M. Zohar: Megalithic cemeterys in the Levant In: O. Bar-Yosef, A. Khazanov (Ed.) Introduction. In Pastoralism in the Levant. Archaeological Materials in Anthropological Perspectives 1992 p. 43 ff

Web links

Remarks

^ Amnon Ben-Tor: The Archeology of Ancient Israel , Yale University Press, 1992, p. 141.
↑ Holley Moyes: Sacred Darkness. A Global Perspective on the Ritual Use of Caves , University Press of Colorado, 2012, p. 89.
^ Tara Steimer-Herbet: Les tombes tours du Harra syria, étude préliminaire d'un paysage désertique à l'aide des scènes satellitaires à haute définition , in: Syria 88 (2004) 111-121.
↑ Andrea Polkaro: Jebel Mutawwaq Dolmens: Cult of Ancestors in EB I Wadi Az-Zarqa Valley , in: P. Matthiae et al. (Ed.): Proceedings of the 6th ICAANE, Rome 5-10 May 2008 , Vol. 2, Wiesbaden, 2010, pp. 553-566, here: p. 554.

[1] Amnon Ben-Tor: The Archeology of Ancient Israel , Yale University Press, 1992, p. 141.

[2] Holley Moyes: Sacred Darkness. A Global Perspective on the Ritual Use of Caves , University Press of Colorado, 2012, p. 89.

[3] Tara Steimer-Herbet: Les tombes tours du Harra syria, étude préliminaire d'un paysage désertique à l'aide des scènes satellitaires à haute définition , in: Syria 88 (2004) 111-121.

[4] Andrea Polkaro: Jebel Mutawwaq Dolmens: Cult of Ancestors in EB I Wadi Az-Zarqa Valley , in: P. Matthiae et al. (Ed.): Proceedings of the 6th ICAANE, Rome 5-10 May 2008 , Vol. 2, Wiesbaden, 2010, pp. 553-566, here: p. 554.