Dharih (Jordan) : the sanctuary in the Roman period and in the 6th-8th centuries AD. Excavated by François Villeneuve & Zeidoun al-Muheisen, 1984-2013
(Khirbat adh-) Dharih, in Central Jordan, is a 9 hectares site, located in the large valley of the Laaban (southern tributary of the canyon al-Hasa) where runs the South-North historical road of the inner Southern Levant, known as “King’s highway “ (at-tarîq as-sultâni). The whole valley is preserved from any modern buildings and Dharih is property of the Jordanian State, fenced and monitored. Its components are: an exceptional sanctuary, a building for cultic banquets, a residence, a caravanserai and a heated bath on the access way to the sanctuary, a hill with a few early remains, a village of about 20 houses and oil-presses, and two funerary areas. There are several periods, with large gaps between them: Pottery Neolithic A (Late 7th millennium), Early Bronze I & II (late 4th / early 3rd millennium), Iron age II, 1st-mid-4th centuries AD (Nabataean then Roman), 6th-8th c. AD (Christian then Islamic), 10th-12th c. AD. This was excavated during 15 seasons, 1984 till 2013, by Yarmouk University and Institut Français du Proche-Orient, with Department of antiquities of Jordan, and ArScAn research center in Paris / Nanterre. A significant part of the results are published in a final way or in the process of being published. The publication of the splendid and large sanctuary will be directed by the excavators François Villeneuve and Zeidoun al-Muheisen and finalized during the next three years with the aid of this White Levy Program grant.
That sanctuary presents two main phases. During the first period, Roman (2nd to mid-4th centuries AD), after the transformation of a small sanctuary of the Nabataean independence period (1st century AD), a temple, two precincts with courtyards and buildings, were built first, plus entrance buildings. The whole was abandoned in AD 363, due to a major earthquake. The second period, after 150 years of abandonment, started in the 6th century AD and lasted until the 8th, when another major earthquake causes another abandonment. During that period, part of the former sanctuary (temple and Northern precinct) was reused as a Christian village, with its church, converted into a Muslim estate ca 700 AD, while the rest of Dharih remained ruined and provided the village / estate with stones for its buildings.
The project brings together Jordanian experts from Yarmouk University in Irbid, French experts from ArScAn research center and Polish experts from Warsaw University. One sub-team, headed by the excavators Villeneuve and Muheisen and by architect de La Noue will work for the preparation of a volume dealing with the Roman period (mainly architecture, decoration, cultic interpretation) and another one, headed by Waliszewski and architect Piraud-Fournet, will prepare the volume treating the Late Byzantine and Early Islamic reuse of the complex.
