University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 12-2006 Nabataean and Roman Survey Pottery from the Karak Plateau, Jordan Meagan Kelley Ayer University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation 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 Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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 studentecor r ds.) 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: