Qasr Abu el-Kharaq

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Qasr Abu el-Kharaq
limes Limes Arabiae et Palestinae
section Limes Arabicus
(backward Limes line)
Dating (occupancy) Nabatean , Roman
Type castle-like tower
size 22 m × 18 m (= 0.0396 ha)
Construction stone
State of preservation Well-preserved building with an almost at ground level access and an underground passage
place Qasr Abu el-Kharaq
Geographical location 31 ° 21 ′ 1.8 "  N , 35 ° 56 ′ 36.8"  E
height 792  m
Previous Qasr el-Al
(rear Limes line) (north)
Subsequently Khirbet el-Fityan
(southwest)
Backwards Muhatt el-Hajj (north)
(northwest) ;
Muhatt el-Hajj (south)
(northwest)
Upstream Qasr Bshir
(front Limes line) (southeast)

Qasr Abu el-Kharaq is a watchtower that originally belonged to the defense system of the kingdom of Nabataea (150 BC – 105 AD) and was later used by the Roman army to secure the eastern desert border of their Arabia province, established in 106 AD Petraea has been reused. Since the administrative reforms of the Emperor Diocletian (284–305), the province was led under the name Arabia and the watchtower part of the Limes Arabicus . The very well preserved architectural monument is located in the Amman Governorate in Jordan .

location

The castle-like watchtower Qasr Abu el-Kharaq, which belongs to the late antique rear Limes system, is located around three kilometers northwest of the Praetorium Mobeni ( Qasr Bshir ) fort, which was built between 293 and 305 AD visual contact of the open desert landscape. The Qasr is located on a hill from which an excellent view of the surrounding land is possible, which is characterized by a wide, slightly hilly plain in the Jordanian steppe, the size of which is around 8,000 square kilometers. The table landscape around the fort is made up of numerous flat small wadis crossed, all of which drain west into Wadi Mujib during the rare rainfall . The climate corresponds to the subtropical- arid zono biom , which is typical for desert landscapes.

Research history

The biblical archaeologist Nelson Glueck (1900–1971), who visited many buildings on the Roman Limes in Jordan in the second half of the 1930s, paid a brief visit to the watchtower in 1936. Despite these and other early studies, the Limes in present-day Jordan was one of the least studied border regions of the Roman Empire in the period that followed until the early 1980s. The decisive contribution to the modern research of the late antique Limes Arabicus was made by the investigations of the American provincial Roman archaeologist Samuel Thomas Parker , who undertook archaeological expeditions from 1980 to 1989 with a team of scientists from different disciplines. As head of the Limes Arabicus Project , he focused on the Roman border in central Jordan.

Building history

The rectangular building measures 22 × 18 meters (= 0.0396 hectares) and is oriented from south-southwest to north-northeast. The exterior walls inclined towards the inside of the tower are a striking structural element. Near the east end of the northern outer wall there is an access that has remained intact to this day. According to Glueck, its slightly elevated position above the top of the site could indicate that there may have originally been a ledge and steps in front of this access. At the best-preserved corner of the tower, which is located at the western end of the north wall, Glueck still counted 22 preserved layers and thus a preserved height of well over eight meters. The sometimes irregularly set dry masonry consists of roughly trimmed rubble stones and mostly of different sized hand blocks. Glueck also found plaster residue, especially on the south side, which is also well preserved. With the plastering, the joints between the individual stone settings were also filled. To stabilize the masonry, corner stones were used at the corners . According to Glueck, the western outer wall still had 23 layers. At its southern end, near its foot, the archaeologist observed a small opening that led to an underground passage that turned north. Since debris blocks the further course of this corridor, its destination remains unknown.

Glueck noticed traces of a square-shaped inner courtyard with other building structures around the Qasr, which surrounded the watchtower on three sides. The British archaeologist David Leslie Kennedy , who stated this enclosure, which was classified as structurally possibly older, with a size of around 60 × 60 meters, was also able to add in 1990 that the younger watchtower had been placed against the north wall of this enclosure.

During his visit, Glueck found small quantities of Nabatean ceramic fragments, including a piece of sigillata . Glueck classified the largest proportion of broken fragments in the Early Iron Age (EI I-II) and assigned this material to the Moabites . However, since the archaeologist and his colleagues only stayed a few minutes at this site due to a lack of water and no cistern could be found, it was impossible to make actual quantitative statements about this selection of ceramics. With the help of the ceramic shards that were undertaken during field inspections of the Limes Arabicus Project , however, it was possible to provide evidence that the site was visited again and again from the Iron Age to the present, with the mass of the fragments evenly referring to Iron Age II (1000-586 BC) and the Nabatean / early Roman epoch. But even in the late Roman and early Byzantine times, the tower was occupied again and again.

literature

  • David Leslie Kennedy , Derrick Newton Riley: Rome's Desert Frontier from the Air BT Batsford Limited, London 2004, ISBN 0-203-78927-X , p. 220.
  • Nelson Glueck : Explorations in Eastern Palestine, III . In: The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 18/19, 1937-1939, pp. 103-105.

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c d David Leslie Kennedy, Derrick Newton Riley: Rome's Desert Frontier from the Air BT Batsford Limited, London 2004, ISBN 0-203-78927-X , p. 220.
  2. ^ Samuel Thomas Parker: The Limes Arabicus Project. The 1985 Campaign . In: Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 30, 1986, pp. 233-252; here: p. 247.
  3. ↑ Hans-Peter Kuhnen : Desert Frontier of the Roman Empire - The Fateful Frontier of Rome in the Orient from Augustus to Heraclius . In: Hans-Peter Kuhnen (Ed.): Desert border of the Roman Empire. The Roman Limes in Israel and Jordan . Nünnerich-Asmus, Mainz 2018, ISBN 978-3-961760-10-7 , pp. 1–116; here: p. 138.
  4. ↑ CIL 3, 14149 .
  5. ↑ Praetorium Mobeni
  6. ^ Qasr el-Al
  7. ↑ Nelson Glueck : Explorations in Eastern Palestine, III . In: The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 18/19, 1937-1939, pp. 103-105; here: p. 103.
  8. ↑ a b Johanna Ritter-Burkert: Qasr Bshir - Praetorium Mobeni (JO) . In: Hans-Peter Kuhnen (Ed.): Desert border of the Roman Empire. The Roman Limes in Israel and Jordan . Nünnerich-Asmus, Mainz 2018, ISBN 978-3-961760-10-7 , pp. 136-139; here: p. 137.
  9. ↑ Nasim Barham: Geographical Problems of Rain Agriculture in Jordan (= Dissertation ), University of Hanover, 1979, p. 35.
  10. ↑ Heinz Ullrich Baierle: Vegetation and flora in south-western Jordan (= Dissertationes Botanicae 200), Cramer / Borntraeger, Berlin, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-443-64112-1 , p. 11.
  11. ↑ Nelson Glueck : Explorations in Eastern Palestine, III . In: The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 18/19, 1937-1939, pp. 103-105.
  12. ↑ Nelson Glueck : Explorations in Eastern Palestine, III . In: The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 18/19, 1937-1939, pp. 103-105; here: p. 105.
  13. ↑ Nelson Glueck : Explorations in Eastern Palestine, III . In: The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 18/19, 1937-1939, pp. 103-105; here: p. 104.
  14. ↑ a b Nelson Glueck : Explorations in Eastern Palestine, III . In: The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 18/19, 1937-1939, pp. 103-105; here: pp. 104–105.
  15. ^ Peter M. Fischer: Tall Abu al-Kharaz: The Swedish Jordan Expedition 1995-1996: Sixth and Seventh Season Preliminary Excavation Report . In: Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 41, 1997, pp. 129-144; here: p. 141.