Volume 65, no. 4
December 2002
PETRA
A Royal City Unearthed
ON THE COVER: Detail of an elephant-head capital from the Great Temple at Petra. Photo by A. W. Joukowsky.
ARTICLES
Ancient and Modern Watershed
Management in Petra
by Talal S. Akasheh
Desert Oasis: Water Consumption
and Display in the Nabataean Capital
by Leigh-Ann Bedal
The Petra Great Temple:
A Nabataean Architectural Miracle
by Martha Sharp Joukowsky
A Dedicatory Inscription to the Emperor Trajan
by John Bodel land Sara Karz Reid
A New Plan of Petra's
City Center
by Chrysanthos Kanellopoulos
Two Visual Languages at
Petra: Aniconic and Representational Sculpture of the Great
Temple
by Joseph J. Basile
Excavating a Nabataean Mansion
by Bernhard Kolb
Life and Death in Nabataea:
The North Ridge Tombs and Nabataen Burial Practices
by Megan A. Perry
The Churches of Byzantine
Petra
by Patricia Maynor Bikai
The Petra Papyrii
by Marjo Lehtinen
DEPARTMENTS
ARTI-FACTS
A Palestinian Organization Works to Preserve Sites in the
West Bank in the Midst of War
Adel Yahya
5,000-Year-Old
Burials Discovered in Jordan
Larry G. Herr
Scholars
Build Internet Dictionary to Unravel Sumerian Language
Kyle Cassidy
REVIEWS
The Wilderness of Zin (Steve Rosen)
Jerusalem in Original Photographs, 1850-1920 (Uzi Baram)
220 Ancient and Modern Watershed
Management in Petra
By Talal S. Akasheh
One of the most serious problems facing Petra today is the
seasonal flashflooding that occasionally occurs in the area,
threatening man and monument alike. These flashfloods were
as much a problem in antiquity as they are today, as the Nabataean’s
ingenious hydrological systems, designed to control the flooding,
attest. The author presents the results of a survey designed
to document some of the dams built by the Nabataeans and a
computer-based modeling of the watersheds with a view to offering
a possible modern solution to this ancient problem.
225 Desert Oasis: Water Consumption
and Display in the Nabataean Capital
By Leigh-Ann Bedal
Revelations of an ornamental garden with a monumental pool
and associated waterworks in Petra’s city center leads
to an understanding of the extensive Nabataean water catchment
system and the water display apparent in a variety of installations
scattered throughout the city as an expression of Nabataean
prestige and political status.
235 The Petra Great Temple: A
Nabataean Architectural Miracle
By Martha Sharp Joukowsky
Once the visitor to the Petra Geat Temple mounts the Propylaea
steps from the Colonnaded Street, he is removed from the hustle
and bustle of the secular world and enters a precinct where
he might sense the divine epiphany of the Great Temple itself.
Here the author presents the results of the past ten years
of Brown University excavations at the Great Temple and relates
how archaeology has refined our knowledge
251 A New Plan of Petra's City
Center
By Chrysanthos Kanellopoulos
For the last decade, intense archaeological activity has focused
on the city center, where new discoveries have rendered previous
plans of Petra hopelessly out-of-date. Kanellopoulos presents
an informative and attractive new map of the city center that
incorporates the latest information that archaeology has to
offer.
255 Two Visual Languages at Petra:
Aniconic and Representational Sculpture of the Great Temple
By Joseph J. Basile
At the Petra Great Temple a number of figural relief panels
depicting Classical deities were recovered beside two aniconic
betyls. These two sculptural types reflect an important dichotomy
in Nabataean art—the adoption by the Nabataeans of Hellenistic–Roman
forms of representation together witht he persistence of an
Arabian/Semitic tradition of depicting deities aniconically.
How does the author account for these two, seemingly contradictory,
forms of divine image? Read on!
260 Excavating a Nabataean Mansion
By Bernhard Kolb
Swiss excavations between 1988 and 1997 in an area southeast of the Great Temple known as ez-Zantur, has provided insights into the domestic architecture and way of life of the Nabataean urban middle-class between the late first century BCE and fifth century CE.
265 Life and Death in Nabataea:
The North Ridge Tombs and Nabataean Burial Practices
By Megan A. Perry
Excavations of two tombs on Petra’s North Ridge provide bioanthropological and artifactual evidence of the health and funerary practices of a small group of Petra citizens.
271 The Churches of Byzantine
Petra
By Patricia Maynor Bikai
The excavation of three Byzantine churches and the discovery of a cache of Byzantine papyri by the American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR) have created new pages in the history of Petra. The churches are clustered on a slope in the northern part of downtown Petra and, together with two tombs of the Nabataean era also excavated, provide evidence for the people who lived at Petra in the centuries after it had ceased to be an important metropolitan center.