Greeks in the East or Greeks and the East?
Problems in the Definition and Recognition of Presence
JANE C. WALDBAUM
Department of Art History
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
P.O. Box 413
Milwaukee, WI 53201
jcw@csd.uwm.edu
This article considers the question of Greek presence in the Levant from a number of viewpoints. It first surveys the attitudes of both classical and biblical archaeologists towards Greek imports in the Levant, examining the extent to which expectations have driven interpretation. It then addresses the problem of identifying the users of Greek pottery in the Levant and the criteria used to identify them. Such matters as quantities of imports, preferred shapes, shapes intendedfor special uses, and other elements of material culture such as architecture, burial customs, and inscriptions are discussed to see whether they can be used to help us identify Greeks in the East, or even whether they shed light on relations between Greece and the East.
Preliminary Report on the 1994 Season
of the Roman Aqaba Project
S. THOMAS PARKER
Department of History
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-8108
thomas_parker@ncsu.edu
This report presents preliminary results of the firvt excavation season of the Roman Aqaba Project (RAP) at the border between the southern end of Wadi Araba and the northernmost extension of the Red Sea. The article includes background, goals, research design, and salient results from excavation of the RAP Results of the project's regional survey arepresented in a companion article by Smith, Stevens, andniemi (1997). Finally, some preliminary historical conclusions are offered based on this research. The excavation uncovered significant portions of the ancient Nabataean, Roman, and Byzantine city of Aila, which flourished from the first century B.C. to the Early Islamic conquest. It seems clear that parts of the Byzantine settlement continued to be occupied even after construction of the new Islamic walled town in the mid-seventh century A.D. Considerable evidence relating to the economic history of this international commercial port was also recovered.
The Southeast Araba Archaeological Survey:
A Preliminary Report of the 1994 Season
ANDREW M. SMITH II
MICHELLE STEVENS
TINA M. NIEMI
Despite several past explorations of Wadi Araba, the southeast sector of the valley has remained largely terra incognita. This lack of exploration has created a significant gap in general knowledge of the archaeological history of the valley. Hence, any discussions of the historical geography of Wadi Araba are necessarily limited, particularly in a regional context. The first season of the Roman Aqaba Project's Southeast A raba Archaeological Survey (SAAS) finally bridged this gap by recording 162 sites in the eastern valley north of Aqaba. The results of this investigation provide important new data on several periods of human occupation within Wadi Araba. The evidencefor the Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age, Early Roman/Nabataean, and Byzantine periods is especially noteworthy. Moreover, ancient sites documented within the hinterland of classical Aila allow for a better understanding of the evolution of its economy within a broader regional framework.
Southern Jordan in the Fatimid and Seljuq Periods
ROBERT SCHICK
Albright Institute of Archaeological Research
26 Salah al-Din Street
P.O. Box 19096
Jerusalem, Israel
rschick@vms.huji.ac.il
This article gathers together the meager historical and archaeological evidence available for the area of southern Jordan between the Wadi Mujib and 'Aqaba during the period of Fatimid and Seljuq rule from 970 until the start of the Crusades in the early 12th century. Arabic authors shed some light on the historical geography of the area, while occasional historical accounts highlight the chronically unstable political situation of the century-long Fatimid period, when the Arab tribes were in the ascendancy and the briefer period of Seljuq rule that started in 1071. The limited information from archaeological surveys and the results of excavations, sofar largely confined to 'Aqaba, point to a decline in the fortunes of the settled population.
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