Several years ago, I published a paper in the journal Levant arguing that the end date of a key layer in Petra, the Spätrömisch II phase at al-Zantur, had been dated at least a century too early. To summarize the argument of this paper very briefly, the excavators identified the end of Spätrömisch II as an earthquake destruction, attributed it to the earthquake of 419 AD, and dated the material in this phase to the narrow window between 363 AD, the earthquake destruction that ended Spätrömisch I, and 419 AD. As I pointed out, there are several problems with this identification, notably that there is little other evidence for this earthquake causing damage south of the Dead Sea, that clear “matching” 419 AD destruction layers have not been found elsewhere in Petra, and that there is clearly post-419 AD material in Spätrömisch II, including coins and imported ceramics. If we accept that this phase did end with an earthquake destruction, this is much more likely to be the earthquake of ca. 597 AD, damage from which is well-documented in Petra.
Considering that I was calling into question the dating of a key phase for the early 5th century in the region, I expected that this paper would generate a bit of controversy and lead to some rejoinders. I’ve therefore been a little surprised that in the nearly five years since its publication the response has been, well, basically nothing. Up until recently, the only citation was in Daniel Plekhov’s dissertation, where he cites the paper in a general discussion of earthquake damage in Petra. Because of that, I was excited to find recently that Yvonne Gerber had also cited the paper in her chapter on the ceramics in Humayma Excavation Project 3, particularly as I had thought she would disagree (she had, in fact, confirmed that she disagreed at a conference several years ago).
(As a side note, from the perspective of someone preparing an upcoming Humayma Excavation Project volume, HEP 3 is pretty daunting. As expected, the volume is very thorough and well-edited, and, as with the previous volumes, it sets a high standard for the volumes to follow.)
I quote Yvonne’s response to my paper here in full, as it is quite short, and the volume is not yet widely available:
“This is also not the place for a comprehensive rebuttal of Ian Jones’ (2021) approach to the Byzantine ceramics from az-Zantur (notably from EZ I), which amounts to date-shifting: the closing date (as accepted, first half of the fifth century) is tentatively pushed to the end of the sixth century. The forthcoming publications of all ceramics from the Nabataean mansion on az-Zantur IV (EZ IV; first to fourth centuries) and of the ceramics from the ‘Roman Street in Petra Project, 1997’ (fourth to sixth centuries) will demonstrate in detail that Jones’ hypothesis cannot be validated” (Gerber 2024: 504).
This is a rather disappointing rebuttal. While this does indicate several more thorough responses are forthcoming, if they follow the same tack, these seem unlikely to address the core of my argument regarding al-Zantur Spätrömisch II. Although perhaps premature, given the very short nature of this rejoinder, I think it is worth responding to these points here. Time will tell if the more detailed rebuttals change my position.
The primary problem is that, within these two sentences of rebuttal, Gerber concedes the entire argument of my paper, which suggests that we actually agree (and that she has potentially misunderstood my argument). She argues that the “closing date” of Spätrömisch II is, “as accepted, first half of the fifth century.” This is, of course, not the case. The date proposed by the excavators for the end of this phase is 419 AD, well within the first quarter of the 5th century. Gerber is, of course, likely aware that there is ceramic material in this phase that postdates this, but that much (but not all) of it would be comfortable in the first half of the 5th century. The problem is that if we accept Gerber’s “first half of the fifth century” date, we still most likely have to reject the dating of the Spätrömisch II destruction to 419 AD. If we accept that it is an earthquake destruction, this leaves open the question of what earthquake the destruction should be attributed to. It is possible that it is not an earthquake destruction, and I consider this in the paper. This could open up a broader range of dates, but here I trust that the excavators have correctly identified an earthquake destruction. If this is the case, the next likely candidate is the Areopolis earthquake of ca. 597 AD, which, as noted above, is known to have caused destruction elsewhere in Petra.
This leads to the second problem. Gerber seems to interpret my argument as a “date-shifting” of all of the ceramics in Spätrömisch II to the late 6th century. This is simply incorrect. As I point out in the paper, several sites in Petra, including the Great Temple and the Main Theater, have late 6th century destructions (possibly mid-8th century, in the case of the Main Theater) that post-date most of the material in their latest phases, suggesting that the destruction occurred after a partial or total abandonment of the structure. There is no reason this cannot have occurred in al-Zantur, and I would note that I do not argue in the paper that there are any late 6th century types present in Spätrömisch II. My primary arguments concerning the ceramics are that the Negev wheel-made lamp first appears in the early 6th century and that there are imported types or local interpretations thereof in Spätrömisch II that are unlikely to appear before the late 5th. It’s possible that Gerber’s upcoming publications will change my mind about some of these specific dates, but to “demonstrate in detail that Jones’ hypothesis cannot be validated” requires evidence that all of these types appear in the first two decades of the 5th century or earlier. We must, of course, await these publications to see whether this is the case.
Works Cited
Gerber, Yvonne. 2024. “Ceramic Analysis of the Roman Fort.” In Humayma Excavation Project 3, edited by John Peter Oleson. ASOR Archaeological Reports, vol. 31. Alexandria, VA: ASOR.
Jones, Ian W. N. 2021. “The southern Levantine earthquake of 418/419 AD and the archaeology of Byzantine Petra.” Levant 53(1): 107-121. https://doi.org/10.1080/00758914.2021.1916157.