Dharih, from the Neolithic to the Fatimid period: a sanctuary on the King’s Highway, by Zeidun al-Muheisen and François Villeneuve | April 30, 2024
Tuesday, April 30th, 6 pm
Icomos Jordan – The Cultural Hub Bayt Yaish – Jabal al-Weibdeh, Amman
Dharih is a beautiful deserted archaeological site between Wadi al-Hasa and Tafilah. Known since the late 19th century, it was long considered as the place of a small Nabataean sanctuary, an annex of the well-known Tannur sanctuary, excavated in the 1930’s on a rocky summit. This is actually the contrary, Dharih having one of the major sanctuaries outside Petra, as visitors can realize when visiting the Nabataean hall of Jordan museum in Amman, and Tannur being its external annex. The surveys, excavations and restorations conducted there from 1983 till 2013 by Yarmouk University and IFPO, then the postdig work still in process at Yarmouk University revealed not only the picturesque architecture and decoration of the Roman-period Nabataean sanctuary but an original succession of settlements: Pottery Neolithic A, Early Bronze Age, Late Iron Age through Hellenistic; after the Roman period a Late Antique and Early Islamic dense village, and finally a poor and rare settlement of the 10th-11th centuries AD.
Zeidoun Muheisen, PhD of Paris 1 University, once a member of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, and a Director General of the Petra Regional Authority, is Professor of Classical Archaeology at Yarmouk University. He headed numerous excavations in Jordan, including Yasileh and Hayyan al-Mushrif. He published The Water Engineering and Irrigation System of the Nabataeans, 2009.
François Villeneuve, PhD of Paris 1 University, a former director of the French archaeological institute in the Near East (IFAPO ), is an Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern Classical Archaeology at Paris 1 University. He excavated in Syria, Jordan (Iraq al-Amir) and Saudi Arabia (Mada’in Salih / Hegra, Farasan islands).
Previous conferences:
Unveiling the Ghassanian Neolithic Hunters: Unprecedented Recent Discoveries from the South Eastern Badia Archaeological Project,
by W. Abu Azizeh and Mohammad B.Tarawneh
Icomos Jordan – The Cultural Hub Bayt Yaish – Jabal al-Weibdeh, Amman
Since 2013, the South Eastern Badia Archaeological Project undertakes fieldwork in a remote desert area of Jordan (Jibal al-Khashabiyeh), where a group of specific kind of structure termed “Desert kites” was identified. This research allowed determining the function of these structures, as traps to capture gazelles, and to date them back to the Late PPNB period (7000 BC), which is significantly earlier than previously thought for this kind of structures. One of the main aspects of the projects’ results is the identification of the occupation sites related to the groups of hunters using the “Desert kites”. These sites provide an invaluable amount of data related to the socio-economic as well as the techno-cultural background of these Neolithic specialized hunters. Recently, the excavation in two distinct Ghassanian occupation sites shed light on a hitherto unexpected aspect of this newly identified culture related to the ritual performance related to the use of “Desert kites”. After having discovered in 2021 a first exceptional ritual complex, including anthropomorphic standing steles and multiple symbolic and figurative references to the “Desert kite”, a new similar structure was uncovered during the last fieldwork season in 2023. These structures, are unique in view of their exceptional state of preservation and as they shed a totally new light on the symbolism, the artistic expression as well as the spiritual culture of the hunters populations involved in such mass hunting strategies during the Neolithic.
Wael Abu Azizeh est archéologue, chercheur à l’Institut français du Proche-Orient (Ifpo) et responsable de l’antenne de l’Ifpo dans les Territoires palestiniens. Il est également chercheur associé au laboratoire Archéorient de la Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée à Lyon. Il est spécialiste de la Préhistoire récente du Proche-Orient (Néolithique, Chalcolithique, Age du Bronze ancien) avec une expertise spécifique sur les régions désertiques et l’archéologie du paysage. Ses travaux portent sur les dynamiques de peuplement et les systèmes d’interaction entre le « Croissant fertile » et les régions de « marges désertiques ». Depuis 2000 il a participé à de nombreuses missions archéologiques et dirigé plusieurs opérations de terrain au Proche et Moyen-Orient (Jordanie, Syrie, Territoires palestiniens, Arabie saoudite, Oman). Il co-dirige notamment depuis 2012 la Mission Archéologique du Sud-Est Jordanien, un programme de terrain franco jordanien financé par le Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires Etrangères, le CNRS, et l’université jordanienne Al-Hussein Bin Talal.
Mohammad Tarawneh is a Jordanian archaeologist and academic, who specialises in Prehistoric Archaeology of the southern Levant. He received his PhD. and MPhil. Degrees in Prehistoric Archaeology from the University of Sydney, and MA. of International Tourism and Hotel Management from Southern Cross University, Australia. Since 2007, he has been a professor of archaeology at Al-Hussein Bin Talal University, Jordan. He conducted several archaeological fieldworks in Jordan, and currently co-directing the South-Eastern Badia Archaeological Project, a joint French Jordanian research program since 2012, funded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MEAE), the French Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), and Al-Hussein Bin Talal University.
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The Jordanian and French cooperation in Jerash: past, present and future
by Julie Bonnéric
Crédits : Terra Incognita s.r.l.
Dr. Julie Bonnéric is an archaeologist, currently a researcher at the French Institute of the Near East (Ifpo) and head of Amman branch (Jordan). She is a specialist in early and middle Islamic periods in the Middle East and her research focuses on the religious and social evolutions following the conquests. She has a particular interest in the region of north Jordan at the Umayyad period, the monasticism in Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula, and the question of senses’ history. She has been the director of the Jarash Eastern Project in Jordan since 2022 and the co-director of the French-Kuwaiti Archaeological Mission in Failaka since 2014.
Lina Abu Saleem (Icomos)
