Nabataean and Roman Survey Pottery from the Karak Plateau, Jordan

135 Pages·2016·2.34 MB·English

by  Meagan Kelley Ayer

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Masters Theses Graduate School
12-2006
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Meagan Kelley Ayer
University of Tennessee - Knoxville
Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes
Part of the Anthropology Commons
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Ayer, Meagan Kelley, "Nabataean and Roman Survey Pottery from the Karak Plateau, Jordan. " Master's
Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2006.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/1493
This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and
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To the Graduate Council:
I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Meagan Kelley Ayer entitled "Nabataean and
Roman Survey Pottery from the Karak Plateau, Jordan." I have examined the final electronic copy
of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in Anthropology.
J. P. Dessel, Major Professor
We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance:
Aleydis Van de Moortel, David G. Anderson
Accepted for the Council:
Carolyn R. Hodges
Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School
(Original signatures are on file with official student records.)
To the Graduate Council:

I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Meagan Kelley Ayer entitled “Nabataean
and Roman Survey Pottery from the Karak Plateau, Jordan.” I have examined the final
electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in
Anthropology.

J. P. Dessel_______
Major Professor

We have read this thesis
and recommend its acceptance:

Aleydis Van de Moortel______

David G. Anderson__________

Accepted for the Council:

Anne Mayhew____________
Vice Chancellor and Dean of
Graduate Studies

(Original signatures are on file with the official student records.)
NABATAEAN AND ROMAN SURVEY POTTERY
FROM THE KARAK PLATEAU, JORDAN

A Thesis
Presented for the
Master of Arts
Degree
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Meagan Kelley Ayer
December 2006
iii
Acknowledgements
As with any such work, there are several people whose contributions were vital to
the completion of my work. I am extremely grateful to Dr. Jodi Magness and Dr. S.
Thomas Parker for their assistance and tutelage during the course of this project it is
highly unlikely that I would have been able to accomplish my analysis without their
knowledge and experience to guide me. I would like to extend thanks to Dr. Mark Green,
who was instrumental in the creation of many of the maps in this work and Dr. John
Mark Wade who instructed me in the scanning and drawing of the sherds. I am also
indebted to Dr. Gerald Mattingly for allowing a complete novice access to this amazing
corpus of material. Dr. David Anderson and Dr. J.P. Dessel deserve special thanks for
their patience and endurance in shepherding this thesis to completion. Last, but certainly
not least, I wish to extend heartfelt thanks to my mentor Dr. Aleydis Van de Moortel for
her encouragement and support over the past four years. Though my own belief in my
ability often wavered her belief in me never did.
iv
Table of Contents

I. Introduction...............................................................................................1
The Region..............................................................................................................2
II. Historical Overview...................................................................................4
The Nabataeans.......................................................................................................5
The Nabataean Client Kingdom............................................................................10
The Annexation and Late Roman Arabia.............................................................13
III. Previous Expeditions and Surveys of Note............................................19
IV. Methodology ..........................................................................................27
V. The Pottery..............................................................................................31
Site Descriptions..................................................................................................32
Distribution Analysis...........................................................................................58
VI. Conclusions and Future Research..........................................................62
Conclusion.......................................................................................................... 62
Future Research................................................................................................ ..64

Bibliography..................................................................................................67
Appendix I Table of Pottery..........................................................................74
Appendix II Site Breakdown According to Pottery Periods.......................108
Appendix III Site Breakdown According to Pottery Type Collected.........114
Appendix IIII Pottery Drawings and Description.......................................118
Vita.............................................................................................................. 126
v
List of Figures
Figure 1 Miller-Pinkerton and Surrounding Surveys........................................................23
Figure 2 Number of Sherds Collected..............................................................................28
Figure 3 Chronological Divisions and Abbreviations......................................................28
Figure 4 KRP 1995 Survey Sites......................................................................................33
Figure 5 KRP 1999 and 2001 Survey Sites......................................................................48
vi

List of Plates

Plate 1 Sites Where Nabataean Pottery Was Collected.................................................109
Plate 2 Sites Where Nabataean/Early Roman Pottery Was Collected...........................110
Plate 3 Sites Where Early Roman Pottery Was Collected.............................................111
Plate 4 Sites Where Late Roman Pottery Was Collected..............................................112
Plate 5 Sites Where Late Roman/Byzantine Pottery Was Collected.............................113
Plate 6 Sites Where Nabataean Painted Fine Ware Was Colleced................................115
Plate 7 Sites Where Unpainted Nabataean Fine Ware Was Collected..........................116
Plate 8 Nabataean Pottery Sherds 65 and 67.................................................................119
Plate 9 Nabataean Pottery Sherds 242 and 531.............................................................120
Plate 10 Nabataean Pottery Sherds 1231 and 1281........................................................121
Plate 11 Nabataean Pottery Sherds 68 and 62................................................................122
Plate 12 Nabataean/Early Roman Pottery Sherd ...........................................................123
Plate 13 Early Roman Pottery Sherds.............................................................................124
Plate 14 Late Roman Pottery Sherds..............................................................................125
vii
Abbreviations

AASOR Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research.
ADAJ Annual of the Department of Antiquities Jordan.
ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt.
AJP American Journal of Philology.
BA Biblical Archaeologist.
BAR Bristish Archaeological Review.
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
BIA Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology, University of London.
HSCP Harvard Studies in Classical Phililogy.
IEJ Israel Exploration Journal
JRA Journal of Roman Archaeology.
PEQ Palestinian Expediation Quarterly.
SHAJ Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan.
1

I. Introduction

The Karak Plateau lies at the foot of the Dead Sea in central Jordan. It has been
occupied continuously from the Paleolithic and has been the sit of several cultures
including the Moabite, Nabataean, Roman and Byzantine. It is thus uniquely suited to
the investigation of land use and resource exploitation over time. During the Roman
period, the plateau was densely populated by a variety of settlements among them small
farms, large agriculture villages and military posts as well as nomadic pastoralists; thus
the use of land and resources in the plateau encompassed great variability (Green 2002:
48).
This study examines a corpus of Nabataean and Roman pottery collected by the Karak
Resources Project during its 1995-2001 surveys of the Karak Plateau, in order to study
distribution patterns of pottery in the Nabataean and Roman periods. The Karak
Resources Project is an expansion of the original survey performed on the plateau by J.
Maxwell Miller and Jack M. Pinkerton from 1978 to 1983 (Miller 1991); its purpose is to
investigate how the inhabitants of the plateau utilized its natural resources and exploited
the access to trade its central location allowed (Mattingly 1996: 349). The purpose of this
study is threefold- first, to determine whether survey pottery can be used to identify
assemblages which are linked to each site’s specific function (such as agricultural and
military sites) second, to determine whether pottery of comparable quality and similar