Ancient Inscriptions Show Life Once Flourished in Jordan's 'Black Desert'

This cluster of about 100 petroglyphs was discovered by a burial in Jordan's Black Desert.

Credit score: Picture courtesy Peter Akkermans

Hundreds of inscriptions and petroglyphs courting again round 2,000 years have been found within the Jebel Qurma area of Jordan's Black Desert. They inform of a time when the now-desolate panorama was teeming with life.

"These days, the Jebel Qurma space, and the Black Desert usually, is a extremely inhospitable space, very arid and tough to cross," stated Peter Akkermans, a professor at Leiden College within the Netherlands who leads the Jebel Qurma Archaeological Panorama Mission. Photographs the workforce took of the modern-day panorama present little water, vegetation or wildlife.

The inscriptions are written in Safaitic, an alphabetic script utilized by individuals who lived in elements of Syria, Jordan and Arabia in historic occasions. Analysis is ongoing, however the archaeologists say their finds point out that round 2,000 years in the past, Jebel Qurma had bushes, wildlife and a large human inhabitants. [See Images of the Petroglyphs in the Black Desert]

When life flourished

"There are actually many 1000's of Safaitic inscriptions and petroglyphs within the Jebel Qurma area, which suggests that individuals intensively used the realm," Akkermans stated.

The petroglyphs, or rock artwork, present photographs of lions, gazelles, horses and enormous birds that could be ostriches. The inscriptions discovered close to these petroglyphs are usually very brief. "A lot of the texts are merely names, like 'so-and-so, the son of so-and-so,'" Akkermans stated.

Some texts comprise data on what folks had been doing, with a number of hinting that the individuals who inhabited Jebel Qurma had conflicts with the Nabataeans, a individuals who constructed the traditional metropolis of Petra. "I'm looking out for the Nabataeans," one inscription reads.

Different inscriptions inform of the challenges and setbacks encountered by the individuals who lived at Jebel Qurma. "Could there be energy towards starvation," one inscription reads, whereas one other was written by a person who stated he was "distraught over his beloved."

Specialists are at the moment analyzing the texts and petroglyphs to realize a greater understanding of what they imply and why they had been created. "The exact purpose for producing rock artwork — inscriptions and/or representations — remains to be unclear and open to dialogue. What was the message which the producers of the rock artwork tried to convey?" Akkermans stated.

How a lush land turned desolate

Along with the inscriptions and petroglyphs, archaeologists discovered the stays of camps, shelters and tombs utilized by the folks of Jebel Qurma. Archaeologists consider that round 2,000 years in the past, the individuals who lived within the area had been nomadic.

The workforce is searching for extra proof of what the setting was like in historic occasions and the way the panorama turned the desolate place it's in the present day.

"Our excavation at one web site revealed plenty of charcoal from the third century A.D., which appeared to symbolize a number of taxa [groups] of bushes, which wanted water year-round," Akkermans stated. "Therefore, the circumstances in at the least the third century A.D. could have been fairly completely different from in the present day. That is definitely one thing I want to discover within the subsequent area seasons, by coring for pollen."

A report describing the finds was revealed not too long ago within the American Journal of Archaeology.

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