Mark Driessen and Fawzi Abudanah

Abstract

This chapter presents the preliminary results of an ongoing fieldwork project in the region of Udhruh (southern Jordan). It focuses on and discusses the ancient agro-hydrological activities and practices of the study area. First it gives an introduction about the history of settlements (with historical and archaeological evidence), and about the environmental and geoarchaeological settings. The second part of the chapter discusses the archaeological results pertaining to the ancient water-harvesting systems, together with the related agriculture fields, and the integrated technical and interdisciplinary approaches required to study them further.

In the thirty-second year of the reign of … Flavius Justinianus, … three days before the Kalends of January, in the four hundred and [fifty]-third year of the province …. To the most respectable Flavius Valens, son of Auxolaos, tax collector of the current seventh indiction and through you to the present and future tax collectors of this city of the Petraeans … I sold to the most God-pleasing Philoumenos, son of Geriontos, … [one] well-watered field that belongs to me [in] the hamlet [   ]aina, near Augustopolis, called Mal-el-Amoa[?] or Mal-[al]-Etherro[   ]eïba, with every right, and I surrendered corporeally its possession. … (I,) the above-written Theodoros, son of Obodianos, have requested that … my person and property and account be relieved of the tax contribution assigned to me for the above-written well-watered field. … from the total landholdings of Augustopolis each [year, with a plot size of] one (and) one ninth iugerum of the (imperial) patrimonium.

Petra Papyrus 25, 30 January ad 559.