What is oft forgotten is that every ruin has a vast support region
close by that existed even in the desert. Only the Romans
transported grain over vast distances during antiquity. Thus a city
like Petra already distant from other centers needed a significant
local agriculture. That it was hydraulic is no surprise.
That also implies that it was constructed over centuries and why it
never quickly recovered once destroyed.
It also shows us how easy it is to underestimate ancient populations
throughout the middle East and how untrustworthy assumptions can be
in desert countries. A densely populated valley bottom can blow away
with an interruption of the water supply. This happened many times
and usually because of barbarian invasion, the last been the Mongols.
Since then a feudalistic mind set obstructed the necessary local
investment. Thus the Levant became a poorly populated waste easily
seized by the Europeans and their inheritors.
LAND NEAR PETRA WAS
A GREEN OASIS IN THE PAST
About 15 km to the
east of the ancient city of Petra, archaeologists from the University
of Leiden have discovered an impressive network of ancient water
conservation measures and irrigated field systems.
Water management in
the desert
“A huge green
oasis” is how Dr. Ir. Mark Driessen describes it. “That’s
what this part of the desert must have looked like in past times.”
In Antiquity, an
ingenious system of underground canals, hacked out of the limestone
bedrock, in addition to specially built aqueducts and reservoirs with
capacities of millions of litres of water, transformed this marginal
region into a complex man-made landscape. This is a fantastic example
of ancient water-management technology, constructed to irrigate the
surrounding terraced field systems.
Dr. Driessen, director
of the Udhruh Archaeological Project, said, “Thanks to
the enthusiasm and hard work of the students and staff of the Faculty
of Archaeology we have succeeded in linking the diverse elements of
this complex which lie scattered over an immense area of many square
kilometres, thereby closing the gaps in this fascinating
archaeological puzzle’.
It is possible that
parts of this agricultural system – which was certainly exploited
in the 6th century CE– were already well established at least 2000
years ago. Analysis of construction mortar and other artefacts such
as pottery will hopefully provide a firmer date for the system.
A complete Roman
fort
The Udhruh
Archaeological Project started in 2011 as a cooperative project
between the Faculty of Archaeology of the University of Leiden and
the Petra College for Tourism and Archaeology of the Al-Hussein Bin
Talal University. Surveys carried out in June and July in and around
the Roman fort of Udhruh have resulted in many more interesting
discoveries.
Exploration of the 4.7
hectare Roman fort of Udhruh shows that this is probably the most
intact fort of the entire Roman Empire.
In several places the
outer walls and towers still stand several metres high and the
interior buildings lie under a layer of construction debris more than
2.5 metres thick. The quarries that provided stone for fort
construction have been extensively surveyed. They cover an area of
several hectares and are amongst the largest to be identified in the
Roman provinces.
The site of Udhruh
most probably played an important logistical role in the trade of
myrrh and frankincense through which the Nabateans acquired their
wealth, and their capital Petra its prosperity. The archaeological
research aims of the project deal with the development of this trade
and the transformation of the landscape through Nabatean,
Roman-Byzantine times into the early Islamic periods.
Greening a now barren
desert is only part of the technological benefits that could have
uses today. Udhruh offers interesting possibilities for applied
archaeology and interdisciplinary research related to modern
sustainable agricultural use and community-based tourism in which the
local peoples participate and benefit.
The South Jordan
survey will be continued in May and June 2013.
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