Gadara Region Project
The “Gadara Region Project” is an archaeological project in northern Jordan, south of the ancient Decapolis city of Gadara near the modern village of Umm Qais. It is concentrated on about 25 km² in the areas of Wadi al-'Arab and Wadi az-Zahar. The project is supported by the Biblical Archaeological Institute Wuppertal (BAI) and the German Evangelical Institute for Classical Studies of the Holy Land (DEI) Jerusalem and Amman , which is also the research center of the German Archaeological Institute .
Location and settlement
The area to be investigated includes the catchment areas of Wadi al-'Arab and Wadi az-Zahar, which flow into the upper Jordan Valley . Of great importance for archeology are three settlement mounds, the Tall Zira'a, the Tall Qaq and the Tall Kenise, all of which have been inhabited for a long time. Of these, the Tall Zira'a appeared to be the most promising for an excavation, because it best reflects the development of the area and external relations due to its more than 5000 years of settlement and as the central location of the region.
There is hardly an area in Palestine where the history of the region can be explored in such a concentrated environment. The deep valley, located about five kilometers southwest of the ancient city of Gadara, is a godsend for archeology in its diversity. Numerous springs, fertile soil and a moderate climate offer excellent living conditions. On the dominating Tall Zira'a, an artesian spring offers the best opportunities for settlement. This is why people have continuously settled here for over 5000 years. The other two large talls - Tall Qaq and Tall Kenise - are in the immediate vicinity of this central location.
In addition, an important trade route runs through the valley, which connected Egypt with Syria and finally the Mesopotamia. More than a hundred sites of human settlement from the Paleolithic to the Islamic period are known to date. Settlements, canals, watermills, cisterns, oil presses, wine presses, watchtowers, tombs and the Tall Zira'a with more than 5000 years of settlement activity offer a variety of fields of activity for antiquity research.
Research history
The first to recognize the archaeological importance of the Wadi el-'Arab was Gottlieb Schumacher . His observations give an impression of the abundance of water and of a flora and fauna unimaginable today, such as could still be found in this area in the last century. “About a dozen springs emerge on the slopes here, overgrown with reeds and oleanders, and flow off in a brook which in June 1885 was 4.2 m wide, 25 cm deep and showed delicious, clear water. .. Due to the steep gradient, the river is well suited to drive a number of mills (scil. 14!) ... They are very primitive in construction and usually have only one grinding mill; with better furnishings they would make a handsome profit for their owner. The banks of the river are richly overgrown with oleanders, raspberry bushes and reeds. Small, natural ponds, which by the way are full of fish, offer an opportunity for a refreshing swim ”.
Nelson Glueck visited the area in 1942. He also reports on the “singularly imposing and completely isolated hill of Tell Zera'ah ...” and mentions the source on the plateau des Tell as the “result of a natural siphon phenomenon leading the underground flow of the water from the higher level of the hills beyond down to below the bottom and, as through a pipe piercing its center, up to the top of Tell Zera'ah ”.
On March 14th and 15th, 1978, an archaeological rescue investigation of the area was carried out before the construction of the Wadi al-'Arab dam. The team lagged behind the findings of its predecessors, only mentioning three localities in its records, including the not to be overlooked Tall Zira'a, which was identified as being inhabited by the Early Bronze Age and Late Byzantine.
In September 1983, the first campaign of the surface survey planned by Jack Henbury-Tenison was carried out in the Wadi al-'Arab. 102 archaeologically significant locations were documented during 18 days of field work. The survey was not continued.
The Gadara Region Project followed up on this investigation in 2001 on behalf of the Biblical Archaeological Institute Wuppertal (BAI) under the leadership of Dieter Vieweger , since 2004 in cooperation with Jutta Häser . The project explored the Gadara region in an interdisciplinary manner. In 2001 and 2002, the focus was on the survey of the capital Tall Zira'a, its lower towns and its immediate vicinity. From 2003 to 2011 excavations were carried out here continuously. In the years 2004–2006, the exploration of prehistoric, ancient and medieval path and road systems was an important focus. Since March 2009 a survey has fully explored Wadi al-'Arab and Wadi az-Zahar (50 km²). The survey was completed in 2013.
Since 2017 the final publication of the archaeological research on the Tall Zira'a and in the Gadara area has been published. The archaeological research on and around Tall Zira'a is to be continued from autumn 2018.
aims
One focus of the project is the exploration of the settlement history of the settlement chamber south of Gadara. The aim is to investigate how the Gadara region was settled in the pre-classical period and how the settlement system changed during the time of the Decapolis , when Gadara became the new center of the region. And finally, the question is asked how and why the settlement focus shifted back to the Wadi al-'Arab to the Tall Zira'a in the 8th century AD.
In connection with the artefacts found, the topographical conditions and the settlement structures in the course of contemporary history, the multiple changes in trade routes are examined.
Furthermore, we are interested in how the inhabitants adapted their survival strategies to the natural conditions of the valley or reacted to the changes in their resources over the course of the millennia under very different climatic conditions.
This includes the investigation of the technical possibilities of the residents of the valley in different epochs of its settlement, in particular the manual developments in the manufacture of ceramics, glass, faience and quartz frit as well as in metalworking.
In addition, the agricultural conditions, flora and fauna as well as the geology (water, rock formations and soil types) of the wadi system are researched.
literature
- C. Steueragel: The 'Adschlun . In: Journal of the German Palestine Association 49 (1926) pp. 80–83.
- Nelson Glueck: Explorations in Eastern Palestine IV . In: Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research New Haven 1951, pp. 25-28.
- Jack W. Hanbury-Tenison: Wadi Arab Survey 1983 , In: Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 28 (1984) pp. 385-424 u. Pp. 494-496.
- Dieter Vieweger: Tell Zera'a in the Wadi el-'Arab. The region south of Gadara. A contribution to the methodology of the tell survey . In: Das Altertum 48 (2003) pp. 191–216.
- Dieter Vieweger, Jutta Häser: Tell Zerāʿa in the Wadi el-'Arab. The “Gadara Region Project” from 2001 to 2004 . In: Journal of the German Palestine Association 121 (2005a) pp. 1–30.
- Dieter Vieweger, Jutta Häser: The “Gadara Region Project” - Tell Zerāʿa in 2005 and 2006 . In: Journal of the German Palestine Association 123 (2007) pp. 1–27.
- Dieter Vieweger, Jutta Häser: Tall Zira'a. Five Thousand Years of Palestinian History on a Single-Settlement Mound. In: Near Eastern Archeology 70, No. 3, 2007, pp. 147-167.
- Dieter Vieweger, Jutta Häser: The “Gadara Region Project” - Tell Zerāʿa in the years 2007 to 2009 . In: Journal of the German Palestine Association 126/1 (2010) pp. 1–28.