The aim of my CBRL Visiting Fellowship was threefold: to investigate the concept of sacred space, to determine by what mechanisms a site might be identified as holy and to examine how such ‘holiness’ might translate or transfer from one religious tradition to another. In particular, I wanted to understand the different fates of two Nabataean cult sites in Jordan: Jabal Harun outside Petra, which remains a destination of pilgrimage for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike to this day (), and Khirbet Tannur in the Wadi Hasa (), which was destroyed in the earthquake of 363 AD and never Christianized.
Fig. 1. Jabal Harun.
Fig. 2. Jabal Tannur.
In many respects, the cult sites at Jabal Harun and Khirbet Tannur are quite similar: both cult sites are located in the mountains (which is unsurprising as ‘high places’ were favoured by the Nabataeans for ritual activity); both sites are situated overlooking great valleys, Wadi ‘Araba and Wadi Hasa; both sites are close to the borders of the Iron Age kingdom of Edom (although virtually no archaeological evidence of this period remains at either site).
Khirbet Tannur, prominent from the 2nd century BC to the 4th century AD, was a beautifully decorated small temple apparently dedicated to the supreme sky god, known either as Qos or Dushara, and his consort the goddess ‘Allat. The iconography celebrates the duality of male and female, elemental power and fertility, the renewal of the spring equinox and the yearly cycle of the zodiac, and the life-giving power of water. In contrast, very little Nabataean material survives at Jabal Harun from the 1st century AD through to the 4th century AD. The main focus of the cultic complex was a giant natural fissure that was converted into a cistern and would have been perennially filled with water. A shrine at the foot of the mountain holds an image of the goddess Isis, goddess of water and fertility. It seems logical that she was the goddess worshipped at Jabal Harun, and possibly even her Nabataean forebear, al-‘Uzza, the Morning Star.
The Nabataeans left no religious texts, so we do not know which stories, if any, they might have told about these sites. The Old Testament, by contrast, is a useful textual source in this respect, and from the 4th century AD onwards the Christians were eager to link places with events in the Bible and to establish them as sites of especial holiness. The 4th-century Church historian, Eusebius, collected these in the Onomasticon, a gazetteer of Biblical sites and their assumed present-day locations. Many of the Christian pilgrimage sites in Jordan derive their status from being mentioned in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament and especially in Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. It seems that trying to situate these sites in the landscape involved combining knowledge of the Bible with details of the site itself. Thus, the site of John the Baptist’s imprisonment and beheading at Herod’s palace of Machaerus was attributed to a location of a ruined Hellenistic fort that corresponded to the story. Similarly, the location of the Cave of Lot was attributed to a place above the eastern shores of the Dead Sea, at a site with Bronze Age remains that corresponded with the antiquity of the Biblical tale.
Sometimes exegetical exactitude gave way to expediency. For example, the Bible clearly states that John was baptising Jesus ‘beyond the Jordan’ and, accordingly, a church was established on the eastern bank of the river. Despite this, nearly all the early pilgrims to Jerusalem, who described their pilgrimage to the baptism site, remained on the western bank of the river. Jabal Harun (said to be the Mount Hor of the Bible where Moses’s brother Aaron died and was buried), is another interesting case. Being the highest mountain peak outside Petra, it has been associated with Mount Hor from at least the 1st century AD by the Jewish historian, Josephus. However, by the time of Eusebius in the 4th century it had acquired an additional identity as the place where Moses had struck water from the rock. This may be explained by the presence of the great natural fissure, that was at the heart of the Nabataean complex, fitting well with the story, and by ‘claiming’ the water elements of the site as part of the Christian narrative, it reduced or even de-legitimized the pagan associations of the place. However, situating the striking of the rock at Mount Hor clearly contradicts the Biblical text, which places that episode at Kadesh well before the arrival of the Israelites at Mount Hor. Nevertheless, Jabal Harun thrived and even acquired some additional Biblical associations thanks to its distinctive natural features. The monastery established there remained operational until the 10th century, with Greek monks attested at the site until the end of the 11th century, and in the 14th century an Islamic shrine commemorating the tomb of the Prophet Aaron (Harun) was built at the summit.
Although both Jabal Harun and Khirbet Tannur were active sites of Nabataean (pagan) worship until 363 AD, Khirbet Tannur did not have the same later success. Despite its inclusion in the Onomasticon, the earliest Christian buildings at Jabal Harun only date from the mid 5th century, and sporadic pagan worship continued at the site even during the century after the earthquake. When the church was built, the pagan cult structure was not torn down but incorporated into the Christian monastic complex. The sanctuary room at the core was carefully ‘neutralized’ of pagan magic by filling it up with orderly rows of building stones, and the rooms around it were then used for food production. Similar sporadic activity seems to have taken place at Khirbet Tannur after the complex was destroyed by an earthquake, but the buildings were neither re-erected, nor even torn down, preserving for future archaeologists a perfect time capsule of the late antique temple.
Khirbet Tannur had close links with the village of Khirbet Dharih, located seven km away in the Wadi La’aban. It is significant that not only was the temple abandoned, but also the nearby village, where excavations show that it was abandoned after the Galilee earthquake of 363 AD until the 6th century. Without a local populace, the temple at Khirbet Tannur would have been deprived of personnel, patronage and much of its raison. This is another contrast with Jabal Harun where, even with a decline in settlement density in the 3rd and 4th centuries in its immediate environs, the link between Jabal Harun and the city of Petra was still vital. If anything, the Church grew more powerful and probably became the main landowner in the area.
Another major impact to the longevity of both sites would have been the change in the inter-regional economy. In the heyday of the Nabataean Kingdom, Khirbet Dharih was the third stop from Petra on the caravan route to Syria, following the King’s Highway. In the 2nd century the King’s Highway was superseded by the Via Nova Traiana, which ran to the east of the Wadi La‘aban, by-passing Khirbet Dharih. Between the 4th and 7th centuries AD the Via Nova also stopped serving as a major long-distance thoroughfare; the collapse of the bridge at the Wadi Hasa may have had something to do with that. Archaeological survey shows that in the Byzantine period the settlements were, for the most part, located further west in the Wadi Hasa, whereas the main inter-regional route passed further to the east.
Finally, we must never underestimate the power of a good story. According to the Old Testament, the Israelites were denied entry into Edom, hence they skirted the land to the east, only trying to access the Jordan Valley at the border of Moab and the Amorites, at the valley of Arnon. Eusebius situates this north of the city of Areopolis (modern Rabba), at the Wadi Mujib. Thus the Wadi Hasa, Khirbet Tannur, and anything lying south of the Wadi Mujib within the territory of ancient Edom, would, perforce, have been excluded from the ‘Holy Land’ on narrative grounds. Given that its immediate environs were depopulated and no major thoroughfares passed by it, there was no incentive to establish a major church. Even when the village was revived, there was no Biblical association to justify a pilgrimage site, and despite its commanding position in the landscape, between earth and sky, it was left untouched.