Lecture Summaries: 11 June, 2003

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Progress on the International Wadi Farasa Project (Petra, Jordan)
by
Stephan Schmid
University of Montpellier III
France

Since 1999 an exploration season and three excavation seasons havebeen carried out by an international team in the Wadi Farasa East, one of the many side valleysof Petra, the ancient capital of the Nabataeans in southern Jordan. This project, made possible by the continous support of the Palestine Exploration Fund, is exploring a huge complex partially carved in the soft sandstone and partially built between the cliffs of the Wadi Farasa East. That complex contains on a first terrace a tomb with a richly decorated facade giving it the name of "Soldier's Tomb", a triclinium (banquetting hall) with a impressive interior architectural decoration, and a courtyard surrounded on three sides by doric porticoes. On an upper terrace remains of a very sofisticated water management system as well as a developped living area including two storried peristyles are situated.The field activities by the Wadi Farasa Project collected enough enough information in order to get a rather precise picture of the overall complex, including information about its chronology. The complex of the "Soldier's Tomb" is one of only a handfull of these installations that can claim to be farely sure dated by archaeological data. Nabataean pottery found below floor slabs and foundation levels date the complex to the mid 1st century AD. What is especially interesting is the plan of the central structure with two huge rooms - the rock carved tomb and the rock carved triclinium - in a common axe around a central courtyard. This corresponds exactly to the central component of the palaces of Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors. Contrary to other cases where funeral architecture reflects the luxury architecture of the living, such as the Hellenistic hypogea in Ptolemaic Alexandria and other more, Nabataean installations such as the complex of the "Soldier's Tomb" present a 1:1 version in terms of size.This new aspect of Nabataean funerary architecture can be used in order to get a much better understanding of these formerly somewhat enigmatic tomb facades. Further, the Wadi Farasa Project reveals a kind of a third dimension of these installations as for the first time the built elements of such a complex are exposed.