Southern Syria Research Articles

Integration of K–Ar geochronology and remote sensing: Mapping volcanic rocks and constraining the timing of alteration processes (Al-Lajat Plateau, Syria)

The Al-Lajat plateau (southern Syria) is a Quaternary volcanic field hosting numerous historical and archaeological sites. Based on the integration of K–Ar geochronology and remote sensing methods, a new map is presented for Al-Lajat plateau volcanic field, and a chronological model for alteration processes (such as weathering) in relation to Quaternary paleoclimatic changes. Potential use of the geological data in archaeological investigations is discussed. The alteration patterns of ferric, ferrous, and clay minerals were identified by using Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper data (ETM+) methods and ratio images of 3/1, 5/4 and 5/7. Principal Components Analysis (PCA), combined with “Crosta technique” interpretation was used to gauge the response of weathered minerals. Using this technique, high concentrations of ferrous minerals appear brightly colored in the third axis of the Principal Components Analysis (‘PC3’), while oxides show the opposite in PC4. Composite images consisting of ratio images (3/1, 4/5, and 5/7), shown in blue, green, and red respectively, appear to be the most useful for mapping the lithologic boundaries of the main lava flows. Based on new K–Ar ages, the timing of the volcanic activity appears to have been between 56 ± 9 ka and 266 ± 6 ka. Three distinct groups of ages can be identified, confirming the sequence of the basaltic units defined by remote sensing: 1) the youngest unit belongs to Tyrrhenian, between 71 ka and 56 ka, 2) the intermediate unit, Pre-Tyrrhenian to Tyrrhenian between 114 ka and 139 ka, and 3) the oldest basaltic unit, surrounding the Al-Lajat plateau, is dated to at least 266 ka. A chrono-alteration model highlights the role of climatic changes in the distribution of the minerals at the surface of the volcanic rocks as a function of the ages. Weathering conditions during the post-glaciation phase are responsible for clay removal in the study area. Integrating dating and remote sensing data are important for mapping the location and timing of past volcanic activity, but can also be used to identify the sources of archaeological tools and architecture in volcanic areas such as the Al-Lajat plateau.

Analysis of >1000 single nucleotide polymorphisms in geographically matched samples of landrace and wild barley indicates secondary contact and chromosome‐level differences in diversity around domestication genes

Barley is a model species for the investigation of the evolution, adaptation and spread of the world's important crops. In this article, we describe the first application of an oligonucleotide pool assay single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) platform to assess the evolution of barley in a portion of the Fertile Crescent, a key region in the development of farming. A large collection of >1000 genetically mapped, genome-wide SNPs was assayed in geographically matched landrace and wild barley accessions (N=448) from Jordan and Syria. Landrace and wild barley categories were clearly genetically differentiated, but a limited degree of secondary contact was evident. Significant chromosome-level differences in diversity between barley types were observed around genes known to be involved in the evolution of cultivars. The region of Jordan and southern Syria, compared with the north of Syria, was supported by SNP data as a more likely domestication origin. Our data provide evidence for hybridization as a possible mechanism for the continued adaptation of landrace barley under cultivation, indicate regions of the genome that may be subject to selection processes and suggest limited origins for the development of the cultivated crop.

Application of a Directional Geoelectrical Resistivity Square Configuration for Anisotropy Estimation in Haramoun Region, Southern Syria

Application of a Directional Geoelectrical Resistivity Square Configuration for Anisotropy Estimation in Haramoun Region, Southern Syria

The Colonnaded axes of the cities of the Decapolis and Southern Syria in the Roman imperial period: Romanization or localization?

The Colonnaded axes of the cities of the Decapolis and Southern Syria in the Roman imperial period: Romanization or localization?

Basalt characterization by means of nuclear and electrical well logging techniques. Case study from Southern Syria

Nuclear well logging, including natural gamma ray, density, and neutron-porosity techniques are used with electrical well logging of long and short normal techniques to characterize the basaltic areas largely extended in Southern Syria. Statistical analysis approach with the threshold concept has been adapted for such characterization, where four kinds of basalt have been identified: very hard basalt, hard basalt, fractured basalt, and basalt alteration products. The spectrometric gamma technique has also been applied on the retrieved rock samples in order to determine the radioactive content (eU, eTh, and K%) of the basaltic section in the study area. No radioactive anomalies have been detected, the radioactive values are normal and in the expected range.

The evolution of the Arabian lower crust and lithospheric mantle — Geochemical constraints from southern Syrian mafic and ultramafic xenoliths

Geochemical compositions of lower crustal and lithospheric mantle xenoliths found in alkali basaltic lavas from the Harrat Ash Shamah volcanic field in southern Syria place constraints on the formation of the Arabian–Nubian Shield in northern Arabia. Compositions of lower crustal granulites are compatible with a cumulate formation from mafic melts and indicate that they are not genetically related to their host rocks. Instead, their depletion in Nb relative to other incompatible elements points to an origin in a Neoproterozoic subduction zone as recorded by an average depleted mantle Sm–Nd model age of 630 Ma. Lithospheric spinel peridotites typically represent relatively low degree (< 10%) partial melting residues of spinel lherzolite with primitive mantle compositions as indicated by major and trace element modelling of clinopyroxene and spinel. The primary compositions of the xenoliths were subsequently altered by metasomatic reactions with low degree silicate melts and possibly carbonatites. Because host lavas lack these signatures any recent reaction of the lherzolites with their host magma can be ruled out. Sm–Nd data of clinopyroxene from Arabian lithospheric mantle lherzolites yield an average age of 640 Ma suggesting that the lithosphere was not replaced since its formation and supporting a common origin of the Arabian lower crustal and lithospheric mantle sections. The new data along with published Arabian mantle xenolith compositions are consistent with a model in which the lithospheric precursor was depleted oceanic lithosphere that was overprinted by metasomatic processes related to subduction and arc accretion during the generation of the Arabian–Nubian Shield. The less refractory nature of the northern Arabian lithosphere as indicated by higher Al, Na and lower Si and Mg contents of clinopyroxenes compared to the more depleted nature of the south Arabian lithospheric mantle, and the comparable low extent of melt extraction suggest that the northern Arabian lithosphere formed in a continental arc system, whereas the lithosphere in the southern part of Arabia appears to be of oceanic arc origin.

Conquest of new lands and water systems in the western Fertile Crescent (Central and Southern Syria)

Apart from hydraulic systems linked to major perennial rivers, the control of water in the Near East passes by the exploitation of complementary seasonal resources: springs, water table, river floods, flash floods. It is particularly the case in the areas of contact between plains and mountains and in steppe transition zones. The water is managed through technical installations (springs capture, diversion dams, canals, cisterns, qanats) which need to be understood within historically contingent situations. The results of three French fields research programs covering the area spreading from the Aleppo plateau to the Yarmuk drainage basin shed new lights on development of water systems and the conquest of new agricultural and breeding areas during the third millennium, the roman–byzantine times and the 19th century AD.

Phylogeography of the Middle Eastern tree frogs ( Hyla, Hylidae, Amphibia) as inferred from nuclear and mitochondrial DNA variation, with a description of a new species

Evolutionary relationships of the tree frogs from the Middle East and the demographic histories of their populations were studied using a combination of mitochondrial and nuclear genes. Hyla savignyi and neighboring populations of H. orientalis (former eastern populations of H. arborea) were the main focus taxa. Within H. savignyi, a deep phylogenetic divergence dated about 8.4 Ma was discovered. Southern populations from Yemen, Jordan, southern Syria and extreme north-eastern Israel are hereby described as a new species, H. felixarabica sp. nov. Our study points to a biogeographic connection of the south-western Arabian Peninsula and southern Levant and to the importance of the Dead Sea Rift as a historical barrier geographically separating the new species from H. savignyi. Major genetic breaks revealed within species ( H. felixarabica: Yemen vs. Jordan–Syria; H. savignyi sensu stricto: Levant vs. Turkey–Iran) are probably connected to climate changes during the Plio–Pleistocene boundary, while the finer phylogeographic structuring probably resulted from the Quaternary climate oscillations. The Cypriote population of H. savignyi originated from southern Anatolia relatively recently. Hyla orientalis from the southern Black Sea region seems to be genetically quite uniform, although two phylogeographic units with western Turkish and Caucasus–Caspian affinities might be detected. Hyla savignyi and H. orientalis carry signals of population expansions dated to the middle to late Pleistocene, while populations of H. felixarabica seem to have rather been constant in size, which might indicate more stable climatic conditions in the southern regions during the Quaternary.

Toitures de basalte : encorbellement et portique dans l’architecture du Hawran (Syrie) du IVe au IIe millénaire

In Southern Syria, the buildings in basalt stone were roofed exclusively with basalt slabs using new techniques : corbelling and system of portico and slabs. These techniques are noticed since the middle of the 4th millennium. Corbelling was mainly developed on Early Bronze Age Ia apsidal houses, and porticos in the 3rd and 2nd millennia on pillared houses. Then the house plans follow the Early Bronze major models and the roofing technique adapted to the use of basalt slabs instead of wood beams. Herder’s communities were mainly concerned with these “ inventions.” Two social contexts appear to give a frame to these developments : egalitarian herders communities during the 4th millennium, and building of prestige housing in the 3rd millennium. Afterwards theses building techniques became the common ones until the beginning of the 20th century AD.

Au pays des Bétyles : l’excursion du philosophe Damascius à Émèse et à Héliopolis du Liban

During their journey in the Near East, Damascius and his dialectics teacher Isidorus of Alexandria went through Emesa and Heliopolis. The account of their expedition can be found in the Life of Isidorus, also called the Philosophical History. Michel Tardieu has emphasized the importance of this report in a book entitled Les paysages reliques, but he focused on the passages dealing with Bostra and the Styx water, in southern Syria. Since he published his work in 1990, the fragments which concern Emesa and Heliopolis do not seem to have been commented on as much as they deserve. The present paper aims at investigating further in this direction. When Damascius visited the two cities, in 489-490 A D, paganism was only surviving on the fringe of society. However, the testimony of the philosopher keeps the memory of pagan cults actually practised in the area under the Roman Empire, especially that of Jupiter Heliopolitanus’ oracle.

Dans les pas de Damascius et des néoplatoniciens au Proche-Orient : cultes et légendes de la Damascène

Damascius’s Life of Isidoros or Philosophical History tells the journey to the Near East of the famous neoplatonist and his teacher Isidoros at the end of the fifth century of the Christian era. In his Paysages reliques, Michel Tardieu has dealt with both men’s tour of Southern Syria. The study is extended here to Damascene, according to the fragments which concern the worship of Theandrios and the foundation of Damascus , where Damascius originally came from. Underestimated or imperfectly commented testimonies ensure that these extracts keep the memory of pagan cults practised in the region under the Roman Empire. Some of them enlighten the exegesis of the philosopher. Damascius was also inspired by the tradition which, ever since the Hellenistic period, placed his city either in the middle of an unspecified Arabia or a little Arcadia of the Near East.

The nature of the subcontinental lithospheric mantle beneath the Arabian Shield: Mantle xenoliths from southern Syria

Rare earth element and Sr- and Nd-isotopic data are presented for clinopyroxenes and amphiboles from mantle harzburgite and lherzolite xenoliths from the Harrat As Shaam volcanic field in southern Syria. These rocks have sampled the subcontinental lithospheric mantle (SCLM) from beneath the Arabian Shield. Initial ɛ-Nd values for the mantle xenoliths from the Arabian SCLM plot within the field of crustal rocks from the region supporting the view that the felsic rocks of the Arabian Shield and the SCLM were derived from a common mantle source between about 750 and 950Ma. Nd-isotope errorchrons for clinopyroxenes and for clinopyroxene–amphibole pairs indicate an event in the SCLM at around 750Ma. This is identified as a melt infiltration event which resulted in the enrichment in light REE of the harzburgitic and lherzolitic clinopyroxenes and the lherzolitic amphiboles and coincides with the time of crust formation in the Arabian Shield (620–870Ma). The present-day Nd–Sr isotopic composition of amphiboles in the lherzolite xenoliths overlaps the composition of one of the proposed source regions for alkali basalt lavas in this region. Hence it is proposed that the mantle equivalent in composition to the amphibole–lherzolites melted in the shallow SCLM, during Cenozoic lithospheric stretching. The Harrat As Shaam xenoliths provide a picture of SCLM refertilisation during the formation of juvenile crust.

Long-term management of water in the Central Levant: the Hawran case (Syria)

Apart from hydraulic systems linked to major rivers, the control of water in the Near East is exercised by exploitation of complementary seasonal resources: springs and temporary river floods. Southern Syria preserves many traces of this exploitation. The principal techniques of water catchment and storage were elaborated during the fourth millennium bc. The waterworks of the two following millennia constituted the basic and sustainable infrastructure of the water supply of the area. The technical innovations and the political reorganizations of the Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad times built a second layer of structures. All these systems were in use until the first half of the twentieth century. One can thus follow over six millennia the processes of technical innovation, the periods of collective investment in large-scale waterworks and the reasons for the resilience or the disappearance of the technical systems and their attached social organization.

Reconsidering the Iron Age II Strata at Tel Dan: Archaeological and Historical Implications

The paper reexamines the finds from Tel Dan, which in several preliminary reports were dated to the Iron Age II (Biran 1982, 1993, 1994, 1996a, 2002). It is suggested that during the Iron IIa Dan was either deserted or was a small rural site, and that the date of Stratum IVA should be down-dated to the end of the 9th/beginning of the 8th centuries BCE. These conclusions have far reaching implications for reconstructing the history of northern Israel and southern Syria in the Iron Age. They also reflect on Dan's cultic role in the Kingdom of Israel.

Magma Genesis and Mantle Dynamics at the Harrat Ash Shamah Volcanic Field (Southern Syria)

A geochemical and petrological study of Miocene to recent alkali basalts, basanites, hawaiites, mugearites, trachytes, and phonolites erupted within the Harrat Ash Shamah volcanic field was performed to reconstruct the magmatic evolution of southern Syria. The major element composition of the investigated lavas is mainly controlled by fractional crystallization of olivine, clinopyroxene, +/- Fe-Ti oxides and +/- apatite; feldspar fractionation is restricted to the most evolved lavas. Na2O and SiO2 variations within uncontaminated, primitive lavas as well as variably fractionated heavy rare earth element ratios suggest a formation by variable degrees of partial melting of different garnet peridotite sources triggered, probably, by changes in mantle temperature. The isotopic range as well as the variable trace element enrichment observed in the lavas imply derivation from both a volatile- and incompatible element-enriched asthenosphere and from a plume component. In addition, some lavas have been affected by crustal contamination. This effect is most prominent in evolved lavas older than 3.5 Ma, which assimilated 30-40% of crustal material. In general, the periodicity of volcanism in conjunction with temporal changes in lava composition and melting regime suggest that the Syrian volcanism was triggered by a pulsing mantle plume located underneath northwestern Arabia.

Molecular and morphological characterization of Crataegus L. species (Rosaceae) in southern Syria

The systematics of the genus Crataegus (Rosaceae) have been considered problematic owing to the fact that hybridization, introgression, polyploidy and apomixis may occur in this genus. A study of the Crataegus species from the Arab mountains, Sweida Province, Syria, has been undertaken based on both plastid DNA sequences (trnL-trnF, psbA-trnH) and morphological data. In the investigated region, three morphologically distinguishable Crataegus species: C. azarolus var. aronia L., C. × sinaica Boiss. ssp. sinaica and C. monogyna var. monogyna Jacq. were investigated. Crataegus azarolus can be clearly distinguished morphologically from C. monogyna by the colour, size and structure of fruits, the number of pyrenes, the flowering and ripening time, the density of thorns, the tree shape and also the leaf shape. According to our morphological data, in Syria, C. × sinaica is variable and could represent a hybrid of C. azarolus × C. monogyna; the cpDNA sequence analysis showed sequences corresponding to C. monogyna as the plausible mother of the hybrid. © 2007 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2007, 153, 255–263.

The Bible and geology: destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

Abstract The biblical story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is interpeted as a reflection of a real natural disaster. According to the Bible. Sodom and Gomorrah were situated near the southern part of the Dead Sea basin or in the Jordan River valley. The description of their destruction in the Bible can be interpreted only as volcanic eruption. Evidence of middle Holocene volcanism is absent both in the Dead Sea and Jordan River regions, but has been found in the Neogene—Quaternary lava highland in the southern Syria. At two settlements, Khirbet El-Umbashi and Hebariye, dated around the second part of the third millennium bc , many animal bones were covered by the basaltic lava. It is possible that, the Bible's story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah combined collective memories about two events. Located in the Dead Sea region, Sodom and Gomorrah were most probably destroyed by a strong earthquake or flood, but the fresh memory about two settlements perishing from a volcanic eruption caused the population to merge these two events.

The surface heat flow of the Arabian Shield in Jordan

Surface heat flow in southern Jordan (western part of the Arabian Plate) was determined in a dense cluster of five, up to 900-m-deep boreholes that have encountered sedimentary rocks of Paleozoic (Ordovician and Silurian) age. These rocks are underlain by an igneous and metamorphic basement, which has been studied for its radiogenic heat production, along the eastern margin of the Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault system. The heat flow, calculated from continuous temperature logs and laboratory-measured thermal conductivity of drillcores and surface samples, averages to 60.3 ± 3.4 mW m −2 and contrasts the common view of the late Proterozoic-consolidated Arabian Shield constituting a low heat-flow province of ⩽45 mW m −2. Although only characterizing an area of about 300 km 2, this average is unlikely representing a positive local anomaly caused by voluminous HHP granites/rhyolites at shallow depths. Instead, a heat flow of 60 mW m −2 is considered a robust estimate of the Phanerozoic conductive surface heat flow not only for Jordan, but for the Arabian Shield in areas unaffected by younger reactivation. The large variation in conductive heat flow (36–88 mW m −2) previously observed in Jordan, southern Syria, and Saudi Arabia is irreconcilable with their broad similarity in lithosphere structure and composition and rather reflects a combination of factors including low-quality temperature data and insufficient knowledge on thermal rock properties.

Two New Greek Inscriptions with the name ϒTWR from Umm al-Jimāl

Among the several hundred new Greek funerary inscriptions collected by the Al al-Bayt Expedition from Umm al-Jimāl, two mention the name ϒTWR. Both of these are funerary stele inscriptions, bearing the name and patronym of the deceased, and both mention the age of the deceased. After discussion of the new texts, some observations about their significance will be offered. The Ituraeans' kingdom, located in the Biqa' valley near Baalbek in Lebanon in the first century BCE, is attested amply in literary sources. What is now clear is that even earlier, in the second century BCE, the Ituraeans had infiltrated the Hauran of southern Syria, Northern Transjordan and Galilee. Since they are designated as 'Arab' in both biblical and classical sources, it is assumed that they were 'nomads', fiercely independent and warlike. But other evidence now suggests that they were of sedentary character. At Umm al-Jimāl, the name ϒYatūr appeared in a number of Nabataean and Greek inscriptions. Since the texts are of a funerary nature, they appear to be from the settled population.

Dion of the Decapolis. Tell al-Ash'arī in southern Syria in the light of ancient documents and recent discoveries

Despite strong interest and a wealth of recent publications on the cities of the Decapolis, Dion continues to be a blank spot on the map of modern scholarship. Based on literary, epigraphic, and numismatic evidence, the present article shows the strength and validity of the identification of Dion with Tell al-Ash'arī. This article combines these written data with recent archaeological results and is thus the first comprehensive account of a site, which, it is hoped, will yield further evidence of a significant Graeco-Roman city in the western Haurān.