Temple at Petra Challenges Veteran American Archeologist

by Pat McDonnell Twair

“I knew I had one dig left in me and I wanted something that cried out to be excavated, a site where I would learn something new.”

So said Brown University professor and archeologist Martha Sharp Joukowsky, who has been excavating the Great Southern Temple at Petra since 1992. In the past, the classical archaeologist has excavated in Sicily, Corfu and at Aphrodisas in Turkey.

Joukowsky serves as a trustee at the American University of Beirut and also conducted excavations at Sarafand in Lebanon from 1969 to 1973.

Aware that less than one percent of Petra has been excavated, and that its remarkable architecture is endangered by increasing tourism, Joukowsky submitted a five-year report to Jordan’s Department of Antiquities in 1992, which was immediately accepted.

“I asked the Jordanian director of antiquities, Ghazi Biseh, what he wanted me to concentrate on,” Joukowsky recalled at UCLA, where she was giving a lecture for the extension service.

Biseh told her: “You’re the archaeologist, do what you have to do.”

Using an aerial map, Joukowsky circled the area she thought might yield the best results in reconstructing the little known Nabataean capital. This was the Great Temple in the heart of the city estimated to have accommodated a population of 12,000 people. Greater Petra is believed to have had a population of 30,000.

“Over the past four years, we’ve come up with so many surprises, so many unexplained architectural features, we feel challenged to find some answers,” she told her UCLAaudience. Students at the lecture were fascinated by Joukowsky’s description of Petra as an impenetrable plateau owing to its sole entrance, the Siq, a narrow gorge through towering cliffs which could easily be closed off to intruders by rolling a boulder anywhere in the mile-long passageway.

After numerous queries about the inaccessibility of the legendary kingdom, she allowed that there is a much more difficult back passage near Jebel Haroun, but that it rarely is used. One such instance, according to legend, is when the Hebrews entered it to slay 18,000 Edomites, the predecessors of the Nabataeans. In recent times, especially before the peace accords between Israel and Jordan were signed, daredevil Israelis crawled through it to say they’d reached the forbidden city.

Beginning in the 2nd century B.C., as the Nabataeans became rich from their caravan trade, they hired architects to build monuments to their deities and newly acquired wealth. The Roman Emperor Trajan annexed Petra in 106 A.D., and it later flourished as a Byzantine city to the 5th century.

Symbols of Wealth

“Not unlike many nouveaux riches,” Joukowsky explained, “the Nabataeans suddenly had money and they wanted to show it off. Basically a nomadic people, they hired architects trained in Greek and Roman traditions, but they still wanted their buildings to be constructed their way.”

Most of the public buildings, she believes, were Hellenistic in stylesimilar to the still-standing “Treasury” at the entrance of the Siq.

The Nabataean features are what intrigue her.

“We found stepped canals beneath the temple, as well as a vast canalization system throughout the city. Why did they need such a complicated canal system? We still haven’t found the cistern, but we know it will be huge.”

Again, was the huge structure (84 feet by 120 feet, covering 7,000 square meters) a temple or an administrative building? Was it one building or two?

Few inscriptions have been found and those recovered are not in the Nabataean script, but in Greek and Latin. Dushara was the patron god of the Nabataeans, but the Brown team doesn’t know to what deity the temple was dedicated.

Joukowsky is certain the structure predates Roman occupation, but the complicated stairs and arches are definitely part of the repertoire of Roman architects.

The Brown professor believes the inner court of the temple may have been open to the sky (much like Moroccan atria), which would explain the need for canals to siphon off water. The colonnades around the temple, she added, were roofed.

Portions of colossal statuary have been recovered: a huge nose and part of a hand. Another mystery presented itself in the form of ornate circular plaster gewgaws. After many attempts to fit them together, the Brown team was flabbergasted to discover they formed profiles of elephant heads which adorned the capitals of columns (see drawing).

What’s more, Joukowsky pointed out, these were Asian elephants, evidenced by their smaller ears and double-domed foreheads. Elephants obviously were not in Petra, but artisans probably had heard descriptions of them since the 3rd century B.C. when Alexander the Great’s conquests extended from the Middle East as far as India.

The Brown team also is doing minor reconstruction owing to the poor condition of the rock which could crumble after it is exposed to the elements. Arches have been reinforced in the rear of the temple so that it is safe to excavate beneath them. Joukowsky hastened to add that red sand is mixed into the cement so that reconstructed areas are clearly distinguishable from ancient architecture. The only other reconstruction efforts have been to re-erect column drums on spots where columns once stood.

Joukowsky has an entertaining sense of humor which must put her 17 students in a better mood as they work 10-hour days for 10-week seasons in Jordan’s blistering hot summers. She also speaks fondly of the 24 Jordanian workmen at the site and of the American team’s interaction with villagers.

With next summer marking her fifth season, does she plan to extend the excavation?

“Absolutely,” she said. “We will plan another 10 years until we complete our work.”

What is her ultimate goal for such an extended project?

“Before the excavation is closed, I hope to reveal the entire architectural layout of the building and its sacred precinct,” Joukowsky replied. “I also hope to post signage that will help visitors interpret what they are seeing. Beyond this, I want to know to whom the temple was dedicated and how it was used. Most of all, I wish to understand how the Great Temple was woven into the fabric of its extraordinary Nabataean urban environment.”