Provenance analysis of marble ecclesiastical elements from the extra-mural Byzantine Church of Udhruh (South Jordan)
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(2020) 12:26
ORIGINAL PAPER
Provenance analysis of marble ecclesiastical elements from the extra-mural Byzantine Church of Udhruh (South Jordan) Khaled Al-Bashaireh 1
&
Fawzi Abudanah 2 & Mark Driessen 3
Received: 27 February 2019 / Accepted: 24 November 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The aim of this research is to assign the provenance of marble samples uncovered from the extra-mural Byzantine Church of Udhruh (Augustopolis), south Jordan. The church is a three-nave basilica that most probably was built in the fifth century CE. In later expansion phases, it was remodeled by the addition of two side chapels and several rooms. The research investigated the physical, mineralogical, and isotopic properties of twenty-four marble samples of different functions using naked eyes, lenses, and multiple analytical techniques including optical microscopy, mass spectrometry, and X-ray diffraction. The results showed that the architectural elements were made of the gray calcitic Proconnesus-1 marble (Marmara, Turkey); while the four fonts or basins were carved out of the beige dolomitic Thasos-3 marble (Thasos Island, Cape Vathy, Greece); and the small squared column of unknown function was carved out of the fine-grained white calcitic Penteli marble (Mount Pentelikon, Attica, Greece). The results indicate that the most popular supply of the ecclesial marble to the south (and north) Jordan during the Byzantine period was the gray Proconnesus-1. The use of white Penteli and Thasos-3 marbles were limited to ritual elements. Keywords Ecclesiastical Marble . Byzantine Church . Provenance Investigation . Archaeometric Analysis . Udhruh . Jordan
Introduction Background The village of Udhruh, 12 km east of Petra (Fig. 1), had almost gone into oblivion as an archeological site until the early 1980s (Killick 1983, 1986; Abudanh 2006). Earlier explorations and excavations revealed that Udhruh housed an important Nabatean settlement and a Roman legionary fortress, and
* Khaled Al-Bashaireh [email protected] Fawzi Abudanah [email protected] Mark Driessen [email protected] 1
Department of Archaeology, Yarmouk University, Irbid 211-63, Jordan
2
Petra College for Tourism and Archaeology, Al-Hussein Bin Talal University, Wadi Musa 71810, Jordan
3
Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9514, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
became a major center during the Byzantine and Muslim times. The Nabataean period in this region dates traditionally from the 3rd–2nd BCE till 106 CE (the date of the establishment of the Roman Province of Arabia), although the material culture and layout of structures remain dominantly Nabataean through large parts of the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. For earlier expeditions and research in Udhruh see for instance Brünnow and Domaszewski (Brünnow and von Domaszewski 1904: pp. 429–462); Glueck (1935: p. 76); Killick (1990: pp. 249– 250); Al-Bashaireh (2013). The Roman castra—with large parts of the more than 3-m wide ashlar defens
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