PEF Activities in Jordan in 2003:
The International Wadi Farasa Project
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International Wadi Farasa Project
Zoara Survey and Excavation Project
Excavations at El-Khasneh (The Treasury), Petra
The Garden Triclinium, Wadi Farasa, Petra |
Dr Stephan Schmid, presently at Montpellier
University, originally proposed to the Department of Antiquities of Jordan
to clean the Renaissance Tomb in the Wadi Farasa at Petra. This initiative led to the Wadi Farasa Project, which has been in
progress from 2000 to 2003, jointly funded by the Palestine Exploration
Fund and the Swiss organisation, Association for the Understanding of
Ancient Cultures (AUAC). During
September 2003 excavations were carried out at the ‘Garden Triclinium’
and the ‘Soldier’s Tomb’ in Wadi Farasa. |
 Dr Schmid has long argued that many of the rock-cut tomb facades in Petra had built platforms and colonnades in front of them. One of his main objectives therefore was to demonstrate this through excavations in the Wadi Farasa. After three seasons of work, architectural fragments and in situ column bases and walls have provided good evidence for built structures in front of the Soldier tomb, and probably for most tombs at Petra. This is invaluable information for understanding Nabataean architecture and its origins. A second objective of the Wadi Farasa project has been to systematically excavate inside and in front of the rock-cut installations. Although some tombs were cleared in the 20th century, these activities did not employ modern archaeological methods. Consequently, most information belonging to the tombs’ original history has been lost. Dr Schmid’s work, however, has succeeded in finding some of this material, contributing substantially to understanding the history of Petra. Since most of the characteristic Nabataean pottery sherds recovered during excavations were unstratified or residual, Dr Schmid initiated a strategy of extracting small fragments of such pottery from the mortar and plaster from the Nabataean tombs. By this method, he was able to identify and date the pottery and consequently date the tombs themselves. The structures at Wadi Farasa had later architectural additions that were incongruent to Nabataean styles. This was particularly apparent at the ‘Garden Triclinium’ where I excavated, which had roughly made stone walls and evidence for the re-use of the cisterns (see Fig. 1). The material finds associated with these structures also reflected this post-Nabataean phase. The dating is based on medieval period (11th-13th century AD) pottery finds and Christian tombstones which may indicate a marked presence in Petra during the Crusader period and the continuity of Christian communities beyond the Byzantine era. Work carried out at the ‘Renaissance Tomb’ succeeded in exposing 14 loculi cut into the floor of this tomb that were excavated. Although all of them were looted in the medieval period, enough remains (including human bones, pottery and coins) were found to give an insight about funeral customs of the Nabataeans during the second half of the 1st century AD. |
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