Lichtenberger, Achim - Raja, Rubina: Middle Islamic Jerash (9th century - 15th century). Archaeology and History of an Ayyubid-Mamluk settlement, XVIII-228 p., 144 b/w ill., 4 b/w tables, 156 x 234 mm, ISBN : 978-2-503-57812-5, 70 € (Brepols, Turnhout 2018)

 
Compte rendu par Louise Blanke, University of Edinburgh
 
Nombre de mots : 1918 mots
Publié en ligne le 2022-03-31
Citation: Histara les comptes rendus (ISSN 2100-0700).
Lien: http://histara.sorbonne.fr/cr.php?cr=3553
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          Jerash in northern Jordan is among the most excavated sites in the eastern Mediterranean. Jerash’s urban history spans more than a millennium, from the Hellenistic period into the Abbasid period, although most past excavation projects have focused on remains of the Roman and Byzantine periods. This volume on Middle Islamic Jerash (9^th century – 15^th century) is a welcome addition to the growing corpus of studies on both Jerash in the Islamic periods and Ayyubid-Mamluk Jordan. It mainly comprises results from the Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project (henceforth DGJNQP), directed by Achim Lichtenberger and Rubina Raja. Between 2011 and 2016, the project excavated an Ayyubid-Mamluk-period hamlet consisting of three building complexes. The volume originates from a workshop held in 2016 at Aarhus University, Denmark. It is the third publication in Brepols’ Jerash Papers, a series which was set up by Lichtenberger and Raja to accommodate the publication of their fieldwork. This volume is the first of three to present the results of the Ceramics in Context project. It comprises ten chapters of which the editors have authored or co-authored three. All but two of the remaining chapters were written by members or collaborators of the DGJNQP.

          Chapters 1 and 2 (Lichtenberger and Raja, pp 1-4 and pp 5-36) outline the aims and background of the volume. Chapter 2 focuses on Jerash’s Islamic periods after the earthquake of 749 CE, situating the Ayyubid-Mamluk-period hamlet within its topographical and historical context. In Jerash, material remains from this period have been attested in excavations at the North Theatre, the Church of Bishop Isaiah, the Congregational Mosque, the Oval Piazza, the Hippodrome, and the area in and around the Temple of Zeus. It is, according to the authors, difficult to determine whether these remains constitute a spread-out village or a series of hamlets. The authors provide a short summary of Jerash’s Abbasid history, although at the time of their writing, the extent of the post-earthquake settlement had seen only little exploration. More recent research and publications are establishing the extent of this Abbasid-period settlement in Jerash’s urban centre and its southwest district[1].

          In Chapter 3 (pp 37-43), Peterson examines two Ottoman-period tax registers dating to the second half of the sixteenth century. A register for 1562/63 classifies Jerash as a village and states that it contained both a farm and a market. It lists six Muslim households as residing in the village and states that land was granted to an individual, Ahmed bin Bayezid Bek (p38) as compensation for military service. A second tax register for 1596/97 describes twelve Muslim households and lists tax revenue from, for example, the production of wheat, barley, olives and vineyards, goats. Peterson’s analysis highlights that Jerash was still settled in the 16^th century and emphasises the expansion of the settlement as observed in tax records written 30 years apart.

          Schultz (Chapter 4, pp 45-64) situates the Ayyubid-Mamluk period hamlet within the context of numismatic history. Although no Mamluk-period coins have been excavated by the DGJNQP, the chapter provides some important insights into the production and usage of coins in this period and their distribution within archaeological contexts in Jordan.

          Rasson-Seigne, Seigne, and Tholbecq (Chapter 5, pp 65-96) summarise the evidence for the Ayyubid-Mamluk-period settlement in the Temple of Zeus. Commencing their work in 1982, the French mission to Jerash was the first to pay attention to the post-Classical periods in this part of the town. Previous missions had removed post-Classical material remains from the Temple of Zeus and the Oval Piazza without adequate recording and no subsequent publication. At the Temple of Zeus, the authors documented a permanent settlement comprising small (one-two room) habitations with outdoor working and baking areas and animal pens. The second half of the article provides a catalogue of Handmade Geometric Painted Ware (henceforth HMGPW) retrieved by the French mission. 

          In Chapter 6 (pp 97-115), Kalaitzoglou summarises the architectural development of the Ayyubid-Mamluk-period hamlet in Jerash’s northwest quarter. The hamlet consists of a large square courtyard house – the so-called Ionic building – and two satellite complexes, labelled A and B. The settlement developed over three main building phases during which it gradually expanded in size to accommodate a growing community. During the first phase, the terrain was prepared, and the Ionic building was laid out, while structures A and B comprised only single rooms. In the second phase, the isolated buildings of each satellite complex were linked by walls forming a two-winged complex. Rooms were added to all three structures. In the third phase, additional rooms were added to all three structures.

          In Chapter 7 (pp 117-157), Peterson examines the Middle Islamic ceramics from two contexts that are associated with the abandonment of the Ionic Building (Trench D, evidence 8, 9 10 11) and Complex B (Trench E, evidence 17). Peterson highlights ceramic links between Trench D, evidence 9 and Trench E, evidence 17, which suggests a similar date of disuse as well as some related activities between the two structures. The chapter includes a catalogue of some of the sherds retrieved from the contexts, which are used by Peterson to date the abandonment of the two buildings (15^th century, based on the absence of Ottoman pipes) as well as to discuss the functions of the rooms in which they were found.

          Lichtenberger, Peterson and Raja, with appendices by Polla and Bangsgaard, (Chapter 8, pp 159-190) discuss the chronology of the middle Islamic building complexes as well as the habits of consumption and the economic strategies of its inhabitants. Based on analysis of ceramic sherds, the authors suggest that the construction of the hamlet started in the twelfth century and lasted into the late Mamluk or early Ottoman period. Most pottery was locally produced with some types originating in Egypt and Syria. Pollo (Appendix 1) reports on the results of a lipid analysis of three ceramic vessels, which reveals that the vessels’ contents likely would have been fruit or oil made from castor, linseed, or flax. Bangsgaard (Appendix 2) reports on the faunal remains. Bones are present in small numbers with cut marks found on only 13 fragments (of a total of 295 fragments), which suggests that although meat was occasionally consumed, sheep and goats were mainly bred for milk and wool, while cattle served as beasts of burden.

          Möller (Chapter 9, pp 191-212) addresses the important question (relevant to all archaeological sites) of how to interpret ceramic sherds from chronologically mixed deposits. By analysing the size and pattern of wear, Möller examines the distance a sherd travelled before it disappeared into the ground. Larger sherds with little wear did not travel far before they were buried and can therefore inform us about the site formation, use, and chronology of its vicinity, whereas smaller and more worn sherds likely had a longer afterlife and thus travelled further before arriving in their final destination, being stripped in this process of information about their origin. This new methodology developed by Möller has significant potential and promises to be relevant to ceramic studies at sites throughout Jordan and beyond.

          In the book’s final chapter (Chapter 10, pp 213-224), Basem al-Mahamid outlines the results from the excavation of Umm Zuwaytinah to the north of Amman. The excavations were carried out over the course of one month in June 2012 before the site underwent modern urban development. The settlement was founded in the early fourteenth century and remained in use into the sixteenth century. The author contextualises the settlement within the wider history of late Mamluk and early Ottoman Jordan and sees its development from well-built stone architecture to temporary occupation as an expression of the overall breakdown of the region’s security system.

          Altogether, the volume not only sheds light on a hitherto largely unknown part of Jerash’s history, but also highlights the significance of new methodology and thorough finds analysis. The editors must be commended for their ambitious research and publication programme, which has seen the publication of numerous studies from DGJNQP in quick succession.

          The volume has some shortcomings. A firmer editorial hand would have been welcome: there are a lot of repetitions between chapters both in terms of textual content and images, which means that each chapter can be read as an individual article, but the overall arrangement of the volume comes across as too repetitive considering that most chapters are produced by members of the same project. Some further dialogue and cross-referencing between chapters would have made the volume more coherent. It would also have been worthwhile to include a discussion of Ayyubid-Mamluk-period Jerash as a whole. Although Rasson-Seigne et al. (Chapter 5) reports on the settlement within the Temple of Zeus, little is done to compare the architecture and material culture of these structures to the hamlet in Jerash’s northwest quarter. Only Kalaitzoglou (Chapter 6) raises the important point that it is possible that the main Ayyubid-Mamluk-period settlement would have been located on the eastern bank of the river – an area in which the archaeological remains are largely unexplored due to the presence of the modern town.

          This being said, Middle Islamic Jerash is a welcome addition to the growing corpus of publications on Ayyubid-Mamluk-period settlements. The volume will be of much use to students and scholars working on village life, late-medieval ceramics and more generally on Islamic Archaeology in Greater Syria.

Éditeurs : Lorenz E. Baumer, Université de Genève ; Jan Blanc, Université de Genève ; Christian Heck, Université Lille III ; François Queyrel, École pratique des Hautes Études, Paris
Site conçu par Lorenz Baumer et François Queyrel et réalisé par Lorenz Baumer, 2006/7