Jordan.

Witcher, Robert

S. THOMAS PARKER & ANDREW M. SMITH III. The Roman Aqaba Project final report. Volume 1: the regional environment and the regional survey (ASOR Archaeological Report 19). xi+384 pages, 114 b&w illustrations, 35 tables. 2014. Boston (MA): American Schools of Oriental Research; 978-0-89-757042-8 hardback 65 [pounds sterling].

PAULA KOUKI & MIKA LAVENTO. Petra--the Mountain of Aaron. Finnish Archaeological Project in Jordan, volume III. The archaeological survey. 413 pages, 192 colour and b&w illustrations. 2013. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica; 978-951-653-400-1 hardback 125 [euro].

For the next two publications, we head to Jordan. In The Roman Aqaba Project final report, volume 1, Parker & SMITH present the results of a three-season survey, starting in 1994, of the south-east Wadi 'Araba. The survey forms part of a wider project concerning the Roman economy and long-running debate about whether it was 'primitive' or 'modernist'. To address this question, Parker and team selected Aila, modern Aqaba, to conduct the first investigations of a Nabataean/Roman port on the Arabian coast of the Red Sea. Questions about the role of Aila in long-distance trade demanded not only excavations of the urban centre but also a survey of the port's hinterland and trade route north to the Nabataean 'capital' at Petra. This volume reports the survey results; a second will document the urban excavations; and a third will focus on specialist studies and historical synthesis.

As with the other projects under review, the survey methods were adapted between seasons to maximise results in the face of diminishing resources. For example, transect sampling was reduced and targeted investigation based on the identification of features on aerial photographs was prioritised--a decision, Smith notes, with obvious consequences but also compatible with the project's aims. The 330 sites located are detailed in the site catalogue.

One of the most visible periods is also the earliest documented--the Chalcolithic and transitional Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age. In addition to settlement sites, agricultural terracing and large-scale infrastructure for channelling and retaining floodwater also appear to date to this period; this activity may correlate with a moister regional climate. Evidence for Early Bronze Age activity is much less abundant, disappearing altogether during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. The evidence for Iron Age, Persian and Hellenistic activity is also minimal and there may even have been a hiatus in occupation.

It is only with the Nabataean/Early Roman period (late first century BC to AD 106) that evidence for widespread occupation and exploitation reappears including artefact scatters, roads, forts, structures and quarries. This burst of activity--or, at least, visible activity--is likely to be associated with theNabataeans' transition from nomadism to sedentism, although the exact date and scale of this shift is unclear. It was also during the late first century BC that Aila was founded on the coast, perhaps in response to competition from ports on Egypt's Red Sea coast. The concurrent development of Aila and settlement in the Wadi 'Araba--as far as Petra--is more than coincidental. Large-scale sedentary occupation, however, was short-lived and activity was reduced in the Late Roman period (here starting in the second century AD with the Roman annexation of the kingdom), though Aila itself took on greater prominence as the terminus of the Via Nova Traiana. By AD 300, a legion was based at Aila, but site numbers in the Wadi Araba were declining and visible activity through the late Byzantine, Ummayad, Abbasid and later Islamic periods remained limited.

As one might expect of an ASOR Archaeological Report, this volume is produced to a high standard with excellent black and white photographs, crisp artefact drawings and clearly formatted text and tables; a few colour plates, to give a sense of the landscape, would have been a welcome addition. In contrast to the long-running Messenia and Vasilikos valley surveys, the Aqaba Project was planned, executed and published much more promptly, inevitably reflecting a less extended engagement with the landscape, but offering a more sharply focused result.

Staying in Jordan, Petra--the Mountain of Aaron by KOUKI and LAVENTO is a large format tome documenting a survey of the Jabal Harun--the summit of which some believe to be the burial site of Aaron, the brother of Moses. The study area lies between Petra and the central Wadi Araba (not far to the north of Parker and Smith's survey zone). The survey, conducted between 1997 and 2005, was conceived to investigate the hinterland of a Byzantine monastery on the Jabal Harun, the excavation of which is documented in the first two volumes of the series. Unsurprisingly, in light of the volumes already reviewed, the first fieldwork season indicated that the Byzantine period was not well represented across the wider landscape, but that there was extensive activity of Nabataean date. Consequently, the survey evolved to address longer-term settlement and landscape history, with particular attention to run-off agricultural systems and the relationship of the area to nearby Petra.

The survey covered c. 5[km.sup.2], with additional extensive coverage of 6.5[km.sup.2]. While much smaller than the other surveys reviewed here, the intensity of coverage, however, is much higher, achieving 100% surface coverage. The volume is organised by categories of evidence with chapters, for example, on lithics, Nabataean to Early Islamic pottery, eleventh- to twentieth-century pottery, and glass.

Rainfall in the Jabal Harun is low and highly variable, making irrigation a necessity for agriculture. In this context, it is noted that almost half of all features documented by the survey are hydraulic structures for run-off cultivation. The majority are dams--some up to 4.5m in height and 50m in length--built across wadis to retain soils and to allow floodwaters to soak into the ground. The system along the Wadi as-Saddat, the largest and most complex mapped by the survey, comprises more than 40 dams. Dating these structures is difficult; pottery from adjacent sites points to a Nabataean construction. Regardless, there is evidence for multiple phases of reconstruction indicating use over extended periods of time.

The 'Summary and final remarks' largely recaps the earlier chapters rather than offering a synthetic overview. As the volume is organised by categories of evidence, rather than chronologically, it is not easy to discern the evolution of settlement and landscape use. Nonetheless, the extreme variability of activity over time (now familiar from the other volumes under review) is obvious: the Middle Bronze Age to Iron Age is completely missing while the Nabataean evidence is, again, dominant. There are also, however, some divergences from regional trends, notably the absence of prehistoric pottery. As in the hinterland of Aila in the southern Wadi Araba, the sudden burst of activity across the Jabal Harun during the Nabataean period coincides with urbanisation (i.e. Petra) and the need for more intensive cultivation; similarly, the late Roman period also demonstrates notable abatement of landscape activity.

The volume concludes with a catalogue of 189 sites, a selection of colour plates and a CD. Petra--the Mountain of Aaron is another handsome and well-produced volume (if slightly unwieldy in size). In concept and execution, it is much closer to The Roman Aqaba Project volume--self-contained, detailed and well contextualised--than the other reports under review, though perhaps as a result of the mismatch between the project's original objectives and reality on the ground, it lacks a strong core narrative. Nonetheless, the material provides a rich database that greatly improves understanding of regional settlement and economy, and the hinterland of Petra in particular.

doi: 10.15184/aqy.2015.1