The Afterlife of a Desert Estate: The Qasr Complex at al-Ḥumayma, Southern Jordan at the Turn of the Second Millennium AD

Summary

This is an abstract from the "New Work in Medieval Archaeology, Part 1: Landscapes, Food, and Health" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

From 1992 to 2002, the Humayma Excavation Project investigated a fairly modest palatial structure dubbed Field F103 at the site of al-Ḥumayma in southern Jordan. Early on, the excavators recognized that this structure should be identified as the qasr and mosque complex described in Arabic historical sources as having been built at the site by the ‘Abbasid family. Since then, most discussion of F103 has focused, understandably, on its status as the location where the ‘Abbasids planned the revolution that led to their mid-eighth-century AD ascent to the Caliphate. Occupation continued after the ‘Abbasid family’s departure, however, and recent analysis of the unpublished material from these excavations has revealed that the complex was remodeled in the tenth to eleventh century AD, generally seen as a period of collapse in the region. This paper will focus on this phase of occupation at the site to piece together the processes of political and economic fragmentation that took place in the southern Levant during this transitional period and the ways local minor elites, like those occupying al-Ḥumayma, adapted to this changing political-economic landscape.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Work in Medieval Archaeology, Part 1: Landscapes, Food, and Health   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39014.0