An Arab Chariot Monument at Umm al-Jimāl

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article deals with unpublished fragments of sculpture in basalt found at Umm al-Jimāl, a site of a ruined Nabataean-Roman to Byzantine settlement in northern Jordan, six kilometers south of the border with Syria. The sculptures are typical for the southern Syrian volcanic zone of the Hawrān. The site is located at the extreme southern outcrop of this area, today part of The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.The fragments are contemporary with a better-preserved corpus of similar sculptures investigated by the authors in the basalt desert of al-Ledjā, ancient Trachon(itis). At Umm al-Jimāl, an analogous chariot group driven by deities can be identified by a wheel block with traces of the tail hairs of animals in harness. The assembled figures in human shape with drapery are parallel to the Sahr al-Ledjā statuary. Taking all extant evidence into account, the authors propose recognizing the sculptural remnants from Umm al-Jimāl as testimony of a strongly Hellenistic-Romanized embellishment of a hitherto little-known Arab-Nabataean sanctuary dating to the first or second century AD. This shrine together with its sculptures had most probably been destroyed by the Palmyrenean Campaign in the later third century AD.