Season 2010

A PUBLIC BUILDING WITH A STOREROOM HOSTING BIG STORAGE JARS AND MANY OTHER COMPLETE POTTERY VESSELS (MORE THAN 100) and OBJECTS (INCLUDING FOUR COPPER AXES) JUST DISCOVERED by ROME SAPIENZA UNIVERSITY EXPEDITION AT THE EARLY BRONZE IIIB (2500-2300 BC) CITY OF KHIRBAT AL-BATRĀWĪ (AZ-ZARQA) - THE HASHEMITE KINGDOM OF JORDAN

The site of Khirbat al-Batrāwī was as a major fortified town of the Early Bronze II-III (2900-2300 BC), acting as the central place of Upper Wadi az-Zarqa (North-Central Jordan), at a strategic crossroad of tracks connecting the desert and the steppe to the Jordan Valley (Nigro 2009; 2010). Batrawy was discovered in 2004 and systematically excavated by Rome Sapienza University (www.lasapienzatojordan.it), with the scientific direction of Prof. Lorenzo Nigro, in strong cooperation and under the aegis of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, with the participation of the Queen Rania's Institute of Tourism and Heritage of the Hashemite University of Zarqa.

Previous five seasons (2005-2009) at Batrawy already allowed to indentify the EB II-III Main City-Wall, which encompassed the whole site, and the EB II city-gate; the EB III northern defensive works displaced on at least three lines; the EB IIIB dwelling quarter inside the city-wall; the EB II-III Broad-Room Temple on the easternmost terrace, as well as several domestic units and installations of the EB IVB (2200-2000 BC) village, which occupied the hill after the abandonment of the EB III city (see full bibliography at the bottom).

During the 6th season (May 2010), a major building dating back from the third quarter of the 3rd millennium BC (EB IIIB) was brought to light with large rooms and solid stone walls. Within this building (a palace?) a large rectangular (7.5 x 4.9 m) storeroom (L.1040) was discovered, hosting at least 20 huge pithoi and storage jars containing carbonized seeds (one also red ochre), as well as several other pottery vessels and objects in a pretty good state of preservation for a total number of more than 120. Also medium size jars, pattern-combed metallic jars, as well as other vessels, were collected from the storeroom, all of them sunk into a thick stratum of ashes, broken and heavily burnt mudbricks and plaster fragments, stones and carbonized wooden beams. Big jars and pithoi were aligned on two rows along the walls of the storeroom, often with small vessels at their foot. Red-burnished jugs, black-burnished pointed juglets, medium size jars, and a special double-handed red-burnished vessel with a grooved high pedestal, apparently a ceremonial vase, were also retrieved, illustrating an almost complete set of pottery from the very end of the life of the city (2400-2300 BC). Also objects found in the storeroom are noteworthy: several worked bones (also a bone knife), to be interpreted as luxury goods, as well as a carefully worked basalt stone potter's wheel is a sound witness of the technological achievements reached by the Batrawy community in the 3rd millennium BC, and points at the palace as the institution prompting ceramic standardization.

An extraordinary find was done in the middle of the storeroom, where in a cachette dug in the floor four copper axes were grouped. The latter discovery is particularly significant for Early Bronze Jordan, since copper weapons previously known from the whole Levant are a few specimens, and the ones retrieved in the palace of Batrawy illustrate distinguished types. Moreover, the recent identification of copper mines in Wadi Feinan (Wadi 'Arabah) may indicate the source of metal used for the Batrawy axes.

Such a discovery illustrates the achievement of an early city and of its palace, and will allow to outline more precisely the historical picture of early Jordanian urbanizations in the 3rd millennium BC, brought to a sudden end, in the case of Batrawy, by a fierce conflagration around 2300 BC.

Rome Sapienza University and the DoA have also started comprehensive restorations of the monuments excavated, which will transform Batrawy in one of the most attractive sites of Jordan for pre-classical periods.