5

Settlement in the Petra

Region During the
Crusader Period:
A Summary of the Historical and

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Archaeological Evidence

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Micaela Sinibaldi

T IS WELL DOCUMENTED by historical sources that during the twelfth

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century the Franks established several settlements in the Jabal al-Shāra and
the Petra region, in present-day southern Jordan, as part of the former lord-
ship of Montréal within the territory of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. This
region is currently one of the most interesting to examine within the area of
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the lordship because it offers recent archaeological evidence from excavations

and surveys. As part of the case study of Petra presented here, the chronology
of sites has been addressed and answered on the basis of the creation of two
new archaeological tools: a local chronology of ceramics for the middle and
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late Islamic periods, and a study of building techniques for the Petra region
in the crusader period. By combining the insights gleaned through these tools
and recent archaeological evidence from Petra with documentary sources, it
has been possible either to conirm or to reject the attribution of some sites to
the crusader period. the tools and evidence have also illuminated the function
of the identiied settlements, living standards at twelfth-century sites, the rela-
tionship between the Petra sites and others in the region, and the more general
impact of the Frankish presence upon the Petra region. this paper aims at sum-
marising the main conclusions that I reached on the subject of settlement in the
Petra region during my doctoral research, which show the necessity of revising
the interpretation of settlement patterns and dynamics hitherto proposed.1
 82 Micaela Sinibaldi

The current interpretations of settlement in

Petra and the Jabal al-Shāra in the crusader period

It was Philip Hammond, a scholar mainly interested in the earlier history of

Petra, who made the irst attempt at an interpretation of the signiicance and
role of the settlements in Petra in the crusader period. In 1970 he published
archaeological data for the irst time from a site in Petra dated to the Crusader
period: al-Ḥabīs castle in the Petra valley (Figure 5.1), which he surveyed and
mapped without proceeding to stratigraphic excavations. Hammond proposed

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that the date range for the construction of al-Wuʿayra castle, the main castle
of the Petra region (Figure 5.2), was 1108–16. He also suggested a date range
of 1116–18 for al-Ḥabīs on the basis of the observation that it was a subsidiary
installation dependent on al-Wuʿayra and therefore later than it. He believed
that the fortiications of southern Transjordan, including Shawbak, the Petra

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settlements and ʿAqaba, were all founded by 1115–16, and – following Rey –
that by the death of Baldwin I (1118) a line of fortiied sites already stretched
from Jerusalem to the Red Sea.2 Hammond also argued that al-Ḥabīs would
have been only one of a series of watch posts in Petra, including one on the
Jabal Attuff (i.e. Jabal al-Madzbaḥ), again in the Petra valley.3 He also stated
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Figure 5.1 Al-Habis castle: view of the upper court from the lower court (photograph by
Micaela Sinibaldi)
 Settlement in the Petra Region 83

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Figure 5.2 The fortiied entrance to al-Wuʿayra castle (photograph by Micaela Sinibaldi)
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that Petra was located on the branch of a trade route leading from the King's
Highway4 to the Palestinian coast, and that this made control of the Petra val-
ley essential for the revenues of the whole kingdom. In his opinion, because
of its position in controlling trade with Palestine, Petra during the crusader
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period emerged for the irst time since the Nabataean period as a site of pri-
mary importance for the history of the entire Middle East.5
In the more general framework of his study of sites in the Latin kingdom
of Jerusalem in the crusader period, Denys Pringle has offered some thoughts
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on the sites in Transjordan by carrying out an historical study for each of them,
matched to architectural surveys at some of the structures, including Shawbak
and al-Wuʿayra. He proposed that the date of foundation of al-Wuʿayra should
be placed after 1127 on the basis of historical and architectural evidence. He
also demonstrated that the documentary sources clearly suggest that settle-
ment in Petra was not contemplated until Montréal (Shawbak) was founded
in 1115 as the irst site in the south. Additionally, it was an important centre for
Frankish settlement that was largely based on agriculture and the extraction
of revenues from the Darb al-Ḥajj, the medieval pilgrims’ road to the Islamic
holy cities of Mecca and Medina, roughly corresponding to the King’s High-
way route in Jordan today.6
 84 Micaela Sinibaldi

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Figure 5.3 The location of the main sites of southern Transjordan mentioned in the
text (reproduced and adapted from M. Ababsa (ed.), Atlas of Jordan: History, Territories and
society (Beirut: Institute Français du Proche-Orient, 2013)

Since 1986 the research of Guido Vannini has speciically focused on

understanding settlement in the crusader period in southern Transjordan, with
ieldwork including excavations and surveys at the sites of al-Wuʿayra, Shaw-
bak and al-Ḥabīs. This research has had the merit of drawing attention to the
aspect of settlement at this time in the region and of stimulating further schol-
arly interest in the subject. The settlement model proposed by Vannini since
the 1990s and still proposed today, supports Hammond’s in all its points, and
 Settlement in the Petra Region 85

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Figure 5.4 The sites in the Petra valley during the crusader period mentioned in the
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text (reproduced and adapted from Fiema 2002)
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Figure 5.5 Shawbak castle as approached from the main road (photograph by Micaela
Sinibaldi)
 86 Micaela Sinibaldi

can be summarised as follows. The crusader period was for Petra an impor-
tant revival, relected both in a population increase and trade activities. This
trade activity was based on lourishing and direct contact between the Petra
valley and the Palestinian coast, and was of such importance to the Franks
that Shawbak castle was part of a system centred on the Petra valley itself.
Frankish territorial strategy in the south was to secure control of the bottom of
the Petra valley, where the ‘headquarters of the Europeans’ were located, and
to make it a safe and strategically well-located town. To achieve this, several
forts including those on al-Ḥabīs and Jabal Attuff were created. The crusader

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period in the Petra valley was both followed and preceded by long periods of
depopulation, which had started in the early Middle Ages. Vannini observed
that the lack of settlement immediately before the Franks’ arrival and after their
departure is one of the elements that creates ideal conditions in which to ana-
lyse the crusader phase in this region, as these periods of abandonment make

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the crusader period more easily recognisable than elsewhere; the fact that the
material culture of the europeans differed radically from the local ones makes
it even easier to isolate it from the others. In more recent years, Vannini has seen
the new archaeological evidence from excavations both in the Petra valley and
beyond as conirming the proposed theory of the crusaders’ aim to control the
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Petra valley and the large number of settlements in the Petra region in the cru-
sader period, on the basis of the similarity of their ceramics to those excavated
at al-Wuʿayra castle.7
Concerning the chronology of this fortiication system, Vannini followed
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Hammond and Rey in arguing that the building programme of the crusader
settlements in Petra ‘must have began in the irst decade of the twelfth cen-
tury’, resulting in a co-ordinated project of fortiication in the region of Petra
being already established by the irst 15 years in the context of a construction
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programme completed by the crusaders in a quarter of a century between the

Yarmūk River River and the Red Sea.8

The documentary sources

Fulcher of Chartres accompanied Baldwin I on an exploration of the south of
Transjordan in 1100; they reached Wādī Mūsā and the monastery of Saint Aaron
on top of the mountain (Jabal Hārūn). After spending a few days in Petra, they
returned to Jerusalem on 21 December. Fulcher describes Wādī Mūsā – the
settled area outside the Petra valley where the main centre of settlement had
moved by this time and that gave the name to the modern city – as a valley very
 Settlement in the Petra Region 87

rich in all fruits of the earth, where Moses’s spring was so forceful that it was
used for powering corn mills.9
In 1108 Baldwin led an expedition to Wādī Mūsā in order to destroy a fort
that had been built there by the Damascenes to block the passage of christians.
Afterwards the king assembled from the region ‘Syrian brothers and fellow
Christians’ and took about sixty with him who were afraid of the Arab Mus-
lims.10 It can be concluded that the fort in question was al-Wuʿayra castle, rec-
ognised as the most important structure of the crusader period in the area.11
This information is important in attesting that Frankish settlement in the Wādī

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Mūsā area did not yet exist and was certainly not founded on this occasion:
instead, some local Christians were evacuated to Palestine.
In 1115 the construction of Montréal is attested by Fulcher of Chartres.12
William of Tyre explains that at the time of foundation, the Christians had no
fortress in the country beyond the Jordan River and, because the king wanted

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to extend the boundaries of the kingdom in that locality, he proposed to build
a fort in southern Transjordan. William adds that the garrison there would be
able to protect the nearby ields tributary to the king from the enemy, and that
the king granted the garrison of knights and foot soldiers extensive posses-
sions. The ields produced large quantities of wine and oil and all the land
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around was under the castle’s jurisdiction.13 These accounts conirm clearly
that the Petra castles must have been built after Shawbak castle. They also sug-
gest that the destruction of the Muslim-held fort in Wādī Mūsā may possibly
have been in preparation for the foundation of a castle controlling the wider
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area. The reason for choosing the Shawbak location instead of Wādī Mūsā was
clearly the advantages of being located in a position that provided both secu-
rity and the ability to overlook extensively cultivated ields in a very fertile area
of the south. Moreover, Albert of Aachen explains that the aim of building a
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castle here was to conquer better the land of Arabia and to control the passage
of merchant caravans on the King’s Highway, presumably in order to levy tolls
from them,14 since Shawbak was located on the route of the Darb al-Ḥajj.
In 1144 the Turks, at the invitation of the local inhabitants, seized the for-
tress in Wādī Mūsā and killed the garrison. At this news, Baldwin III travelled
to Wādī Mūsā and the inhabitants of the country took refuge in the impregna-
ble fortress. the Franks besieged the castle for several days until they decided
to uproot the groves of olive trees and burn them. As soon as the inhabitants
saw their trees being cut down, they returned the fortress to the king. The king
then installed a new garrison with supplies of arms and food.15 This is the irst
certain date that we have for the castle of al-Wuʿayra in Frankish hands. It also
 88 Micaela Sinibaldi

bears witness to the presence of olive trees as a very important component of

the locals’ livelihood and that by this time this kind of cultivation, and there-
fore stable settlement, had already been established for a long time. In 1158,
troops from Egypt besieged al-Wuʿayra castle for 8 days without taking it.16
Around 1160 an unknown village in the area of Wādī Mūsā, which proba-
bly included a parish church, was granted to the Hospitallers.17 Frankish settle-
ment was therefore by this time already well organised in the Wādī Mūsā area
and not only in the castles.
Karak castle surrendered to the Muslims between 24 October and 23

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November 1188;18 in 1187/88, a letter from Saladin to his brother with a list of
sites conquered by the Muslims includes the site of Hurmūz, which apparently
had other sites at its dependencies, villages, ields, smaller sites or territories.19
Since Hurmūz was also in the Petra area,20 it is likely that al-Wuʿayra had fallen
to the Muslims by this time. In April/May 1189, the news arrived that Shawbak
had also been inally taken.21
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Jacques de Vitry, who wrote in the thirteenth century, mentioned in his
Historia Orientalis the existence of seven very strong fortresses dependent on
Karak and Shawbak in the crusader period, but did not name them. Deschamps
interpreted them as having been located in ʿAmmān, al-Ṭafīla Khirbet al-Hur-
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mūz (Petra), al-Wuʿayra, Sela (al-Ḥabīs in Petra), ʿAqaba and Jazīrat Faraʿūn.22
Pringle on the other hand, identiied them as ʿAmmān, Al-Ṭafīla, Khirbat
al-Sīl (south of al-Ṭafīla), Khirbat al-Hurmūz (Petra), al-Wuʿayra, al-Ḥabīs and
ʿAqaba.23
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The archaeological evidence

Before summarising the archaeological evidence, I shall briely describe the
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location of the sites discussed here. The limestone massif of the Jabal al-Shāra
rises to over 1,700 m, and one of the reasons why Petra, on a sandstone forma-
tion to its west, was chosen for its location on the western slope of the moun-
tain was its position at the interface of the two geological formations where
perennial springs are formed. Several villages such as Wādī Mūsā are located
along this line of springs (Figure 5.6).The agricultural potential is very high in
the lower exposures of sandstone under the western side; several sites on the
plain, such as al-Bayḍā (Figure 5.7), have been traditionally used for agricul-
ture, including the production of wine. While the Classical period fell into a
phase of wetter weather and therefore good agricultural conditions, the Islamic
period was characterised by a dry phase.24 However, the area of Wādī Mūsā
 Settlement in the Petra Region 89

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Figure 5.6 Location of the mentioned sites in the Wadi Musa and Jabal Shara areas
(reproduced and adapted from B. Beckers and B. Schutt, The Chronology of Ancient Agricultural
Terraces in the Environs of Petra, in M. Mouton and S. Schmid, 2013)
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and Shawbak is described as very fertile in the medieval sources; the area of
Wādī Mūsā remains today well-suited for cultivation.
The road southwest of Wādī Mūsā and through the village of Ṭayyiba
nowadays connects to the Desert Highway and ʿAqaba, while a modern road
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leading northwards from Wādī Mūsā, on which al-Wuʿayra castle is located,

proceeds to al-Bayḍā. From here, another road along the path of the histori-
cal road leads north-east to the road to Shawbak, which is about 20 km from
Petra, over the Shara mountains. There are several entrances to the Petra valley,
but until recently only three were used intensely: one from Wādī Mūsā from
the east through the Sīq; one from Umm Sayun and al-Bayḍā from the north
through Wādī Turkmāniyya; and another from the south-west, passing under
Jabal Hārūn and through the Wādī Thugrā.25 The latter was considered the
usual road for travelling from the Wādī ʿAraba to Wādī Mūsā, while the one
through Wādī Nimla was also used until recently as an alternative for ending
the trip in al-Bayḍā rather than in the Petra valley itself (Figure 5.4 and 5.6). 26
 90 Micaela Sinibaldi

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Figure 5.7 A view of the Bayda Islamic village area with the Jabal al-Shara in the
background (photograph by Ghassem Jibril Ammarin)
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It is commonly assumed that at the beginning of the seventh century Petra
went through a substantial political, religious and cultural shift, after which it
lost its importance, as relected by the fact that it disappeared from the historical
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sources. this is probably where the theory of a complete abandonment of the

Petra valley originates. some scholars argue, however, that the reason for Pet-
ra’s disappearance from the sources is actually its transformation from a pros-
perous metropolis into a provincial town.27 More speciically, Petra as a city in
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the classical and Byzantine sense had already disappeared by the late seventh
century, but without any dramatic abandonment. Instead, settlement gradually
broke up into clusters of habitations spread out among the ruins within the
Petra valley, with an uneven occupation density. One example of these clusters
is on the north ridge of the city centre where the Byzantine churches are located
(Figure 5. 4).28
this view, which corrects the suggestion of a drastic abandonment of the
Petra region in the Late Byzantine/early Islamic period, is supported by recent
archaeological evidence. Regional surveys have recently made signiicant pro-
gress by mapping the extent of settlement in the Petra region in the Islamic
period, and these have offered much information on the sites of the Petra region
 Settlement in the Petra Region 91

across the whole Islamic period, including a number of late Byzantine and
early Islamic sites.29 Such surveys have therefore conirmed that settlement in
the Petra area in the Islamic period extended well beyond the historically well-
known sites, such as al-Wuʿayra and al-Ḥabīs castles. It is the stratigraphic
excavations in the Petra region, however, that have the maximum potential for
a gradual understanding of the local pottery chronology. Pottery of the Islamic
period recovered at numerous archaeological excavations in the Petra region,
although mostly as a result of investigating earlier chronology, has recently
created the opportunity for comparative studies on the assemblages and for

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the development of a chronology based on both typological and scientiic
analysis and stratigraphy. Archaeological excavations have recently begun to
provide the information for analysing the middle to Late Islamic period (elev-
enth−twentieth centuries) diachronically, by revealing sites with long duration
of occupation during the Islamic period. Such recent ieldwork exposed signif-

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icant settlements of this time period both inside and outside the Petra valley.30
Pottery excavated at these sites reveals not only that settlement here was con-
tinuous, but also that the twelfth century was not the most signiicant within
this broad span of time; ceramic data do not support the theory of a sudden and
substantial increase in the population of the Petra valley during that century,
or
followed by a sudden decline thereafter. In fact, data seem to reveal an espe-
cially lively phase of occupation during the mamluk period. the discrepancy
between the large quantity of pottery and the scarcity of built structures of
this period inside the Petra valley is probably due to the large availability of
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rock-cut structures, which are far more eficient than buildings at maintaining a
constant temperature and do not require any construction efforts, giving plenty
of opportunities for reuse of earlier structures.
However, in order to assign ceramics to a speciic chronology, it was nec-
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essary to proceed to the construction of a new archaeological tool: the deini-

tion of a ceramic typology for the Islamic period of the Petra area.31 While it is
undeniable that the building styles and techniques employed at the better known
crusader castles in Petra stand in sharp contrast to those found in other build-
ings, the same cannot necessarily be assumed for pottery. Ceramics show, on the
contrary, general characters of continuity and longevity from at least the eleventh
to the twentieth centuries and, in fact, it is these general similarities of the char-
acteristics of local ceramics of the Islamic period to those known from the sites
of al-Wuʿayra that have led to several preliminary attributions of sites to the cru-
sader period. However, these sites do often show a long duration of occupation
that included, or may have included, the twelfth century, but not exclusively so.32
 92 Micaela Sinibaldi

A similar conclusion can be drawn for the area outside the Petra valley.
Excavations at the town of Wādī Mūsā, which seems to have been the main
medieval settlement outside the Petra valley and where, as mentioned in the
sources, the Franks controlled a village and had a parish church, have revealed
stratiied ceramics that point to a continuous occupation of the area throughout
the Islamic period. The village actually had its most extended phase of occu-
pation in the Ayyubid/Mamluk period.33 Excavations of sites of the Islamic
period outside the Petra valley are an important conirmation of the evidence
that by this time most of the population had moved there. Presumably, this was

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to take advantage of areas with better opportunities for agriculture and much
better access to water, which was progressively scarcer from the Byzantine
period because of the deteriorating maintenance of the hydraulic structures
created largely in the nabataean period.
Excavations at sites of the Islamic period in Wādī Mūsā are important for

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other reasons. Among twelfth-century ceramics at the site, ceramic imports do
not stand out compared to the other periods; on the contrary, these are already
present in the earlier Fatimid period and are still present in the later mamluk
periods.34 There were scarce but continuous imports in Petra through the whole
Islamic period; these have been recorded during the middle Islamic periods
or
at the sites of al-Wuʿayra, Wādī Farāsa, al-Bayḍā and Nawāla.35 the ceramic
assemblage from al-Wuʿayra, the main castle in Petra, appears to include more
ceramic imports than any other site of the Islamic period in the Petra region
investigated until now. However, it does not show a high percentage or variety
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of imported types, which would suggest an exceptionally prosperous trade and

connection with an important network. This in turn indicates that Frankish set-
tlement in Petra did not create or increase signiicantly the trade of the region.
It has been observed by the ceramic specialists analysing the assemblage that
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this included fritware in the last crusader phase, which shows some connection
between the castle and the Syrian markets and that, in contrast, the later phases
(Ayyubid and mamluk) included more regional products.36 given the general
scarcity and limited types of imports in Petra recorded for the entire Islamic
period, it appears that during the crusader period this site had a privileged
access to ceramic imports. What is relected in this situation, however, is not
so much the importance of al-Wuʿayra itself in its direct strategic connections
with Syria or the Palestinian coast, but, much more likely, its natural connec-
tion to Shawbak castle during the crusader period, and therefore, indirectly,
to the King’s Highway. Moreover, the ceramic evidence does not support the
idea that such imports spread to the Petra region in this period. With the loss
 Settlement in the Petra Region 93

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Figure 5.8 Ceramics from excavations at al-Wuʿayra castle and at the Soldier's Tomb,
in the Wadi Farasa, Petra (illustration by Micaela Sinibaldi)
 94 Micaela Sinibaldi

of its importance after the crusader period, and therefore of its connection with
Shawbak, the castle of al-Wuʿayra naturally did not import long-distance or
special ceramic products anymore. The hypothesis that Petra was connected to
important trade networks within Palestine through the Petra valley itself, and
– as seems to be suggested by the current interpretations of scholars – through
the Wādī ʿAraba, is therefore not supported by the ceramic record. On the other
hand, the fact that trade connections with other regions were not very intense
but already well-established at the time of the Franks is not only proven by pot-
tery in the archaeological record but also is further conirmed by the fact that

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a link between Wādī Mūsā and ʿAqaba, including a trade in ish, was already
well-established from at least the Byzantine period and long before the arrival
of the Franks.
Another important aspect for understanding settlement density is the
identiication of sites found in the sources.37 As mentioned above, the sources

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seem to suggest that three important fortiied sites out of the seven depending
on Karak and Shawbak were in the Petra region: according to scholars, these
can probably be identiied with al-Wuʿayra, Hurmūz and al-Ḥabīs (Figures 5.
1 and 5.2), this last one being the only one inside the valley. Another site in
the Petra valley, speciically within the Wādī Farāsa and occupied throughout
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much of the Islamic period, may also have been a minor fortiied point of the
crusader period (Figure 5.9), although not mentioned by the sources. Following
an observation of the building techniques employed at the aforementioned site
of Jabal Attuff – hypothesised to have been a fort controlling the Petra valley
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– and a comparison with the safely identiied sites of the crusader period, a
chronology of the crusader period can certainly be excluded for this structure
(Figure 5.10).38
Mention of a village controlled by the Franks can be found in Wādī Mūsā,
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where there are also archaeological traces of twelfth-century settlement. While

the one castle in the Petra valley, al-Ḥabīs, is not mentioned by the sources as
having controlled territory, al-Wuʿayra and Hurmūz are mentioned as having
dominated larger areas and having had other sites under their control. A study
of historical sources makes it clear that Hurmūz, although still as yet unidenti-
ied, was located outside the Petra valley. It should be noted, therefore, that the
three main sites mentioned in the sources as having controlled territory under
the Franks (al-Wuʿayra, Hurmūz and the unidentiied village in Wādī Mūsā)
are all located outside the Petra valley, and this clearly shows that the focus
of settlement was not on the valley itself. Nevertheless, these sites were only
a short distance away and closely connected to Shawbak castle, which, as the
 Settlement in the Petra Region 95

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Figure 5.9 The excavated area of the Soldier's Tomb in the Wadi Farasa, Petra (photo-
graph by Micaela Sinibaldi)
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Figure 5.10 The remains of the fortiied structure on the Jabal al-Madhbah (photograph
by Micaela Sinibaldi)
 96 Micaela Sinibaldi

documentary sources indicate beyond any doubt, was always the main site of
the region of the Jabal al-Shāra.

Conclusions
Recent archaeological evidence, ceramics in particular, is gradually providing
a much more nuanced picture of settlement in Petra in the crusader period, as
compared to the one proposed by current prevailing theories. What is revealed
is a situation of continuous settlement through the whole Islamic period with-

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out signiicant gaps. At this time, settlements were mainly concentrated out-
side the Petra valley, although several settlement clusters remained inside the
valley, probably making use of earlier buildings and rock-cut structures. It
appears clearly from the historical sources that the focus of population in the
Shārat al-Jibāl area in the crusader period was actually Wādī Mūsā and the

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areas around it rather than the Petra valley itself. This situation is well sup-
ported not only by the sites listed by the sources and identiied with sites out-
side the valley but also by other documentary sources showing clearly that the
Frankish population in Transjordan was normally not even large enough to be
placed at the control of crucially strategic castles; it is unlikely, therefore, that
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the Franks would have had the resources to repopulate an abandoned valley.39
Moreover, and even more so in these conditions, it is dificult to see the rea-
sons why the Franks chose to repopulate the Petra valley rather than occupy
other areas offering better opportunities for security, water and agriculture that
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lay just beyond the valley, where there had long been a focus of settlement. It
appears that at the origin of the incorrect interpretation that settlement in the
crusader period was focused on the Petra valley is at least partially the fact that
archaeological research has until now been largely focused on the valley itself
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and not the hinterland.

Data from ceramics from surveys and excavations also show that, although
settlement may have lourished more in speciic phases of the Islamic period
than it did in others, the twelfth century was not a phase of speciic revival in
terms of settlement and population. Part of the reason why the crusader period
has traditionally been regarded as a particularly lourishing one may have been
the fact that the fortiication of al-Ḥabīs in that period, which is also the best-pre-
served and most visible medieval structure in the valley, had encouraged the
view that the crusader period had had more impact in terms of populating the
valley. Another factor was the lack of studies on local ceramic chronology, which
has therefore led to the erroneous chronological assignment of sites.
 Settlement in the Petra Region 97

Moreover, ceramic imports found in the excavations at Nawāla in Wādī

Mūsā show that the area was already economically lourishing and was
well-connected to international trade in the Fatimid period, while in the cru-
sader period the site does not show any major increase in trade. Again, this
is consistent with the historical sources, according to which Wādī Mūsā, after
losing importance during the early Islamic period, had begun to grow in sig-
niicance from at least the eleventh century.40 In the Shārat al-Jibāl, the Franks
introduced themselves into an already burgeoning economic prosperity that
had begun in the eleventh century and for which they were not mainly respon-

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sible. It can be generally concluded that twelfth-century settlement in Petra is a
matter of continuity rather than change.
The fact that the Franks were not making intensive commercial use of the
roads connecting Petra to the negev is hardly surprising; all evidence indi-
cates that by the later sixth century the communication between Petra and the

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Negev had largely disappeared. For example, sites along the road from Petra
to Gaza do not show the presence of any Byzantine ceramics.41 this does not
mean, of course, that these roads were no longer available for travellers, since
they have remained in continuous use until the present. In the Fatimid period,
the main pilgrimage road still passed through Udzruḥ and Maʿān, but there is
or
no evidence at this time of important commercial roads connecting Petra with
the coast through Wādī ʿAraba.42 At the beginning of the twentieth century
the main ways to reach Petra were again those through Maʿān and Udzruḥ,
and the one through Jerusalem, Jericho, Karak, al-Ṭafīla and Shawbak,43 corre-
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sponding to the general route of the medieval Darb al-Ḥajj. Ceramic imports
from al-Wuʿayra include products well known in the Palestinian region, but
these ceramic types are also well-represented at Karak (some of which most
likely came through al- Ṣāfī south of the Dead Sea), and it is probable that it was
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from there that they arrived in Petra. Unfortunately, the ceramic evidence from
excavations of the twelfth-century phases at Shawbak, which would ill the
gap for understanding its role and that of Petra, is still not available. However,
all of the available archaeological evidence from the lordship of Transjordan
suggests that it was Karak, and not Petra, which had the leading role in con-
necting Transjordan with the western parts of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem,
and that it was through Karak, Shawbak and the King’s Highway that Petra
received the imports from this area; this is proved by the large quantities and
variety of Palestinian ceramic objects present at al- Ṣāfī, and the absence of a
similar variety in Petra. The role of Shawbak in trading goods arriving along
the King’s Highway appears therefore to be largely understated by the current
 98 Micaela Sinibaldi

theories when compared to the role of Petra, when it is afirmed that the real
aim for the construction of the castle of al-Wuʿayra was the strategic control
of the Frankish settlements in the Petra valley, and that Shawbak also had the
role of controlling the access roads to the Petra valley. Possibly, the reasons
for giving a primary importance to Petra over Shawbak are also based on the
incorrect chronological interpretation by scholars of the castles’ construction,
which sees the Petra settlements as having been built before Shawbak castle, in
other words before 1115.
Shawbak had the important function of levying taxes on the Darb al-Ḥajj,

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and it was this settlement, not Petra, which was primarily connected to inter-
national trade, while the Petra castles, only a short distance away, certainly
beneited from their connection with Shawbak with the availability of some of
the same products that arrived with that trade network. Instead, the economic
focus in Wādī Mūsā and al-Bayḍā was apparently on agricultural exploitation.

co
The lordship of Montréal is usually assumed to have had more or less the
sole function of serving as the south-eastern frontier of the kingdom of Jeru-
salem, consisting essentially of a series of fortiied points defending a border.
The belief that settlement in Transjordan indicated a frontier, comprising a line
of fortiied posts, may be at the basis of the implication of current theories that
or
the castle in the area of ʿAqaba and the Red Sea was under Frankish control by
the irst years of the twelfth century, and that this equally involved the north-
ern borders of the lordship. However, Pringle has convincingly proposed that
the ʿAqaba area was probably not irmly under in Frankish control until after
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1154. In the north, moreover, settlement took a very different aspect than in the
south, and in general each region of Transjordan was characterised by a differ-
ent settlement pattern.44
this common image of a series of castles in a largely deserted border area
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arises from several factors: the relative scarcity of textual sources available for
twelfth-century Transjordan, those that survive largely focusing on its mili-
tary aspects; the scarcity of archaeological excavations at twelfth-century sites,
including the important castles of Karak and Shawbak; the fact that these two
castles, being relatively well preserved, have attracted more scholarly interest
than any other sites; and the lack of archaeological comparanda for the region,
due to the only very recent development of interest of archaeologists in exca-
vating medieval sites. It seems to be the case that the Petra region has also suf-
fered from this limited vision, which has led to scholars neglecting the aspect
of rural settlement and patterns of continuity and adaptation to the territory,
rather than those of change and disruption.
 Settlement in the Petra Region 99

notes
1 This paper is based on this author's analysis of Petra in the crusader period in a PhD
thesis submitted to Cardiff University in 2014 under the supervision of Professor Denys
Pringle. (M. Sinibaldi, ‘Settlement in Crusader Transjordan (1100–1189): A Historical and
Archaeological Study’, PhD thesis, Cardiff University, Cardiff, 2014). I am very fortunate
to have beneited, during my PhD work from Professor Denys Pringle's highly profes-
sional and generous guidance, and to have been able to share some of his deep knowl-
edge of the subject of archaeology and history in the Levant, which is also based on his
ieldwork in Jordan. I could not have asked for a better supervision of my work and I am
deeply indebted to him.
2 P. Hammond, The Crusader Fort on El-Habis at Petra: Its Survey and Interpretation,

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University of Utah Research Monographs 2 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1970),
pp. 7–9, 35–6.
3 Hammond, The Crusader Fort on El-Habis at Petra, pp. 33, 38.
4 The term King's Highway, a translation from the Biblical Hebrew, started to be under-
stood, during the twentieth century as a road which led north−south through Moab and
Edom, nowadays regions part of modern Jordan.
5
6 co
Hammond, The Crusader Fort on El-Habis at Petra, p. 39.
D. Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus, i and ii (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, 1998); D. Pringle, Secular Buildings in the Cru-
sader Kingdom of Jerusalem: An Archaeological Gazetteer (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997); D. Pringle, ‘Crusader Castles in Jordan’, in B. MacDonald, R. Adams and
P. Bienkowski (eds), The Archaeology of Jordan (Shefield: Shefield Academic Press, 2001)
pp. 677–84.
or
7 G. Vannini and A. Vanni Desideri, ‘Archaeological Research on Medieval Petra: A Pre-
liminary Report’, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, 39 (1995), pp. 509–38;
G. Vannini and C. Tonghini, ‘Medieval Petra: The Stratigraphic Evidence from Recent
Archaeological Excavations at al-Wuʿayra’, Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan
6 (1997), p.383; G. Vannini, ‘Insediarsi in Oriente: l’incastellamento di XII secolo nella
th

Transgiordania Meridonale, Una lettura archeologica’, in G. Vannini (ed.), Archeologia

dell’insediamento Crociato-Ayyubide in Transgiordania: il progetto Shawbak, Biblioteca di
Archeologia Medievale 21 (Florence: All'insegna del Giglio, 2007), p 16; G. Vannini
‘Archeologia di una Frontiera mediterranea’, in G. Vannini and M. Nucciotti (eds), La
Transgiordania nei secoli XII–XIII e le ‘frontiere’ del Mediterraneo medievale, BAR interna-
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tional series 2386 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2012), pp. 35–6.

8 Vannini and Vanni Desideri, Archaeological Research on Medieval Petra, pp. 511–13.
9 Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem 1095–1127, trans. H.S. Fink
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1969), pp. 146–7.
10 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, ed. and trans. S. B. Edgington (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007), pp. 745–7.
11 Details of the identiication of each site of the crusader period in Petra are in Sinibaldi,
‘Settlement in Crusader Transjordan’.
12 Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, p. 215.
13 William of Tyre, Chronicon, R. B. C. Huygens (ed.), Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio
Mediaevalis 63 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986), pp. 534–5.
14 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, p. 857. Mount Orel was identiied as Mount
sinai in the middle Ages.
 100 Micaela Sinibaldi

15 William of Tyre, Chronicon, pp. 721–2.

16 Ibn Moyesser, ‘Extraits’, Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Or., iii, p. 472.
17 H. E. Mayer, Die Kreuzfahrerherrschaft Montréal (Šōbak). Jordanien im 12. Jahrhundert,
Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästinavereins 14 (Wiesbaden, 1990); D. Pringle, The
Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, ii, p. 377. The village, mentioned in the tex-
tual sources with the possible orthographic variations of Hara, Bara or Ara, is currently
unidentiied.
18 Ibn al-Furat, Ayyubids, Mamlukes and Crusaders. Selections from the Tārīkh al-Duwal wal-
Mulūk, U. and M. C. Lyons (eds and trans.), with historical introduction and notes by
J. S. C. Riley-Smith, ii (Cambridge: Heffer, 1971), p. 52; Abu Shama, ‘Le Livre des Deux
Jardins’, Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Or., iv, p. 382.
19 Abu Shama, p. 303

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20 On the identiication of this site, on which there is still no scholarly agreement, see
Sinibaldi, ‘Settlement in Crusader Transjordan’.
21 Ibn Shaddad, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin (or al-Nawādir al-Sultāniyya
wa’l-Mahāsin al-Yūsuiyya), trans. D. S. Richards (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2002), p. 91.
22 P. Deschamps, Les Châteaux des croisés en Terre Sainte, II: La défense du Royaume de Jérusa-

co
lem: étude historique, géographique et monumentale, Bibliothèque archéologique et histori-
que 34 (Paris: Geuthner, 1939), p. 39 n. 1.
23 Pringle, ‘Crusader Castles in Jordan’, p. 678. Following a recent review of the available
evidence, Pringle has shown that the castle in the ʿAqaba region controlled by the Franks
was in fact located on Jazīrat Faraʿūn, an island about 15 km from ʿAqaba. See Pringle,
‘The Castles of Ayla (al-ʿAqaba) in the Crusader-Ayyubid and Mamluk Periods’,
pp. 333–53.
or
24 L. Tholbecq, ‘The Hinterland of Petra (Jordan) and the Jabal Shara During the Nabat-
aean, Roman and Byzantine Periods’, in M. Mouton and S. G. Schmid (eds), Men on the
Rocks: The Formation of Nabataean Petra (Berlin: Logos Verlag, 2013), pp. 296–7.
25 G.L. Robinson, The Sarcophagus of an Ancient Civilization (New York: Macmillan, 1930),
p. 31.
26 E. Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea, ii (Boston:
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Crocker and Brewster, 1841), pp. 504–11.

27 Z. Fiema ‘Late-Antique Petra and Its Hinterland: Recent Research and New Interpreta-
tions’, in J.H. Humphrey (ed.), The Roman and Byzantine Near East, iii, Journal of Roman
Archaeology Supplementary Series 49 (Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology,
2002), p. 192.
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28 Fiema, ‘Late-Antique Petra and its Hinterland’, p. 241.

29 K. ʿAmr, A. al-Momani, S. Farajat, and H. Falahat, ‘Archaeological Survey of the
Wādī Mūsā Water Supply and Wastewater Project Area’, Annual of the Department of
Antiquities of Jordan, 42 (1998), pp. 503–48; L. Tholbeq, ‘The Hinterland of Petra from
the Edomite to the Islamic Periods: The Jabal ash-Sharah Survey (1996–1997)’, Studies
in the History and Archaeology of Jordan, 7 (2001), pp. 399–405; A. R. Knodell, and
S.E. Alcock, ‘Brown University Petra Archaeological Project: The 2010 Petra Area
and Wadi Silaysil Survey’, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, 55 (2011),
pp. 489–508; M. Sinibaldi, ‘The Pottery from the 11th to 20th Century from the Finnish
Jabal Hārūn Project Survey. Ceramics, Settlement and Pilgrimage at Jabal Hārūn dur-
ing the Later Islamic Periods’, in P. Kouki and M. Lavento (eds), Petra – The Mountain of
Aaron, vol. III. The Archaeological Survey (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2013),
pp. 169–92.
 Settlement in the Petra Region 101

30 M. Lindner, E.A. Knauf and J. P. Zeitler, ‘An Edomite Fortress and a Late Islamic
Village near Petra (Jordan): Khirbat al-Mu’allaq’, Annual of the Department of Antiq-
uities of Jordan, 40 (1996), pp. 111–35; K. ʿAmr, A. al-Momani, N. al-Nawaleh and
S. al-Nawaleh, ‘Summary of the Archaeological Project at Khirbat an-Nawala/Wādī
Mūsā’, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, 44 (2000), pp. 231–55; M. Sinibaldi,
‘The Franks in Southern Transjordan and the Contribution of Ceramic Studies, a Prelimi-
nary Report on the Pottery Assemblages of Bayda and Wadi Farasa’, Annual of the Depart-
ment of Antiquities of Jordan, 53 (2009), pp. 449–64; M. Sinibaldi, ‘The ceramic assemblage
from the later phases at Tomb 303: settlement in Wādī ath-Thughrāh in the Islamic Period’,
Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, 57 (2013), pp. 167–77; M. Sinibaldi, ‘The
Ceramics from the Later Phases of Occupation at the Monastic Site of Jabal Hārūn’, in
Z. T. Fiema, J. Frösén and M. Holappa (eds), Petra – The Mountain of Aaron, vol. II. The

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Nabataean Sanctuary and the Byzantine Monastery (Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica,
2016), pp. 174–83; M. Sinibaldi and C. Tuttle, ‘Brown University Petra Archaeological
Project: 2010 Excavations at Islamic Bayda’, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan,
55 (2011), pp. 431–50; M. Sinibaldi, ‘The Islamic Bayda Project, Bayda (Petra Region), Season
2014’, Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 147.2 (2015), pp. 160–4.

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31 Preliminary results of such chronology are in Sinibaldi, ‘The Pottery from the 11th
to 20th Century from the Finnish Jabal Hārūn Project Survey’ and, for the crusader
period, Sinibaldi, ‘Settlement in Crusader Transjordan’.
32 Sinibaldi, ‘The Franks in Southern Transjordan and the Contribution of Ceramic Studies’.
33 ʿAmr et al., ‘Summary of the archaeological project at Khirbat an-Nawala/Wādī Mūsā’
34 Observations from my direct viewing of the ceramic assemblage and from personal
communications with the project director K. ʿAmr.
or
35 Observations based on my own study of these ceramic assemblages.
36 See G. Vannini and C. Tonghini, ‘Medieval Petra: The Stratigraphic Evidence from
Recent Archaeological Excavations at al-Wuʿayra’, Studies in the History and Archae-
ology of Jordan 6 (1997), pp.382–3; C. Tonghini and A.V. Desideri, ‘The Material
Evidence from al-Wuʿayra: A Sample of Pottery’, SHAJ 7, pp. 710–18.
37 See Sinibaldi, ‘Settlement in Crusader Transjordan’.
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38 The chronology of the fort on Jabal al-Madzbaḥ has, in support of this interpretation,
already been framed by Denys Pringle, who has identiied the construction as having
similar architectural characters to later Byzantine work (later sixth century onwards)
and a possible candidate for the Petra citadel during the Byzantine period. see D.
Pringle, Review of: Z.T. Fiema, C. Kanellopoulos, T. Waliszewski and R. Schick, The
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Petra Church, American Center of Oriental Research Publications, ed. Patricia M. Bikai,
iii (ʿAmmān 2001), Levant 37, 2005, p. 245.
39 See Sinibaldi, ‘Settlement in Crusader Transjordan’.
40 A. Walmsley, ‘Fatimid, Ayyubbid and Mamluk Jordan and the Crusader Interlude’, in
B. mcDonald et al. (eds), The Archaeology of Jordan (Shefield, Shefield Academic Press:
2001), p. 518.
41 Fiema, ‘Late-Antique Petra and Its Hinterland’, pp. 232–3.
42 Walmsley, ‘Fatimid, Ayyubbid and Mamluk Jordan and the Crusader Interlude’,
pp. 518, 543, ig. 15.2.
43 A. B. W. Kennedy, Petra, Its History and Monuments (London: Country Life, 1925), p. 6.
44 See D. Pringle, ‘The Castles of Ayla (al-ʿAqaba) in the Crusader-Ayyubid and Mamluk
Periods’, in U. Vermeulen and J. Van Steenbergen (eds), Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid,
Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras, iv, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 140 (Leuven-Dudley,
 102 Micaela Sinibaldi

MA: Peeters, 2005), p 337, repr. in D. Pringle, Churches, Castles and Landscape in the
Frankish East (Farnham, Burlington, VA: Ashgate-Variorum, 2013), IX. As for the
areas in the north of Transjordan and the other regions, see Sinibaldi, ‘Settlement in
Crusader Transjordan’.

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