Oren, E.D. 1982. Excavations at Qasrawet in North-Western Sinai: Preliminary Report. IEJ 32.4:...

Excavations at Qasrawet in North-Western Sinai: Preliminary ReportAuthor(s): ELIEZER D. ORENSource: Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 32, No. 4 (1982), pp. 203-211Published by: Israel Exploration SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27925855 .

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Excavations at Qasrawet in North-Western Sinai

Preliminary Report

ELIEZER D. OREN

Ben Gurion University of the Negev

For more than sixty days in January-May 1975 and January-February 1976, the

North Sinai Expedition of Ben Gurion University of the Negev explored systematically, under the directorship of the author, the impressive remains of Qasrawet in north

western Sinai.1 The site was discovered in 1909 and investigated briefly in May 1911 by Cl?dat, who immediately recognized its importance as a Nabatean emporium and gar rison during the Roman period.2 The site is located south-west of Qatieh, the largest oasis in northern Sinai, and about 10 km. south of the el-'Arish-Qantara road (Fig. 1).

Qasrawet is situated in a rather inaccessible part of northern Sinai, amidst high, mobile sand dunes and away from any major road leading to the Nile Delta. The ancient re

mains were recorded in a shallow depression, extending over an area of 300 dunams (75 acres). On the west and south sides, the site is bounded by sand dune ridges, and on the east by a small oasis, Hod es-Saqieh, with its picturesque palm grove and three stone lined wells. Four additional settlement sites (Fig. 2, D 51-54) were recorded and in

vestigated to the east and south-east of the central site (D 50). Here the t?menos of a Nabatean 'city' with monumental temples and an extensive necropolis were uncovered, the overall plan of the settlement traced, and its occupational history down to virgin soil established.

The t?menos comprised two temples, western and central (Fig. 3; PL 27:A), an

altar(?), two parallel lines of stone columns that once supported statues or cult symbols, and a wide, open space that terminated in a pavilion. Around the temples were encoun

1 For preliminary reports in Hebrew on the excavations at Qasrawet see E. Oren and E. Netzer: Settle

ments of the Roman Period at Qasarweit in Northern Sinai, Qadmoniot 10 (1978), pp. 94-107 (Hebrew);

E. Oren: Survey of Northern Sinai, 1972-78, in Z. Meshel and I. Finkelstein (eds.): Sinai in Antiquity, Tel

Aviv, 1980, pp. 129-146 (Hebrew). The explorations at Qasrawet formed part of the North Sinai Survey,

conducted since 1972 by the present author on behalf of Ben Gurion University of the Negev, with the aid

of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Southern Command of the IDF. The survey

was assisted by A. Goren and B. Sass, Archaeological Staff Officers for Sinai. The architect E. Netzer was

in charge of excavations of the temple area; M. Heiman, M. Khayon and Frances Hawkin served as area

supervisors; P. Louppen was surveyor and W. Feffer, photographer. Some fifty students and volunteers

from Ben Gurion University of the Negev and the Hebrew University participated intermittently in the ex

cavations. 2 J. Cl?dat: Notes sur l'Isthme de Suez, Annales du Service des Antiquit?s de l'Egypte 10 (1910), pp.

234-237; idem, Fouilles ? Qasr Gheit, mai 1911, ibid. 12 (1912), pp. 145-168, Pis. MIL



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MEDI TE R R A E A SEA ?j^m^m J 1 \

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*a..,.?,??^-NORTH SINAI

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Fig. 1. Qasrawet and the

surveyed

area in northern Sinai.



EXCAVATIONS AT QASRAWET 205

0 56 "I"

f f D54

D51

D50 053

??? ?a

D52

A

Fig. 2. Sites D 50-56.

tered service buildings with large courtyards and installations (Fig. 2). The western, and

earlier, temple is characteristically Egyptian both in ground plan and architectural ele

ments. In a later stage, however, the building was enlarged and characteristic Nabatean

cult stelae or betyls were affixed inside the niches that surrounded the altar in the inner

hall (PI. 27:B). Architectural and stratigraphie considerations imply that the western

temple was constructed in the first century B.C.E. and following some major additions

and alterations in the first century C.E., it remained in use until its subsequent abandon

ment in the late second or early third century. The central, and the most elaborate, tem

ple was erected nearby in the first century C.E. on roughly the same axis and orienta

tion (PI. 28:A). Its plan consisted of two square structures, one encased by the other,

and completed in typically Egyptian style with a monumental pylon-like entrance

fa?ade (Fig. 4). The ground plan of the central temple is perhaps one of the most



206 ELIEZER D. OREN

Fig. 3. Western and central temples (early phase indicated by thick lines).

characteristic features of Nabatean religious architecture and is represented in many of the Nabatean sites in Syria and Transjordan.3

A careful examination of the architectural remains in sites D 50-54 resulted in the conclusion that the Nabatean settlements at Qasrawet were not walled, nor was there evidence for any other defensive measure, such as a tower or fort. It is evident, therefore, that even in a remote desert trading centre usually an attractive target for

raiding nomads, the Nabateans seem to have enjoyed security and considered fortifica tions unnecessary. Also, a survey of the remains indicated clearly that only a few of the structures could be described as ordinary dwellings or private houses, a phenomenon observed already in other Nabatean caravanserais and stations in northern Sinai.4 In the light of the above observations, it is argued that however large was the site of Naba tean Qasrawet, it was by no means a city in the true sense but rather an administrative, commercial and religious centre, occupied by spacious public buildings and a vast

cemetery (PL 28:B). It was designed, in all likelihood, for providing caravans with

religious and other services, and storage facilities; the larger part of its area was used as a tribal burial ground. A glance at some of the Nabatean centres elsewhere in Transjor

3 For studies on the architecture of Nabatean temples see D. Kirkbride: Le temple nabat?en de Ramm, RB 67 (1960), pp. 65-92; . Glueck: Deities and Dolphins, New York, 1965, pp. 73-160; Rachel

Hachlili: The Architecture of Nabatean Temples, El 12 (1975), pp. 95-106 (Hebrew). 4 Oren (above, . 1), pp. 144-145.




Fig. 4. Isometric view from north-west of Nabatean temples.

dan and the Negev, e.g. Petra, Egra, Wadi Ramm, Kh. Tannur and 'Avdat, reveals a

similar picture. These centres were not fortified and their vast areas were usually scat

tered with such public monuments as temples, theatres and tombs, with conspicuously little domestic architecture.5 It appears, therefore, that the dwellings were tents or huts

in the open areas, or even outside these centres.

Of the four outlying settlements the main one, site D 54, proved to be the earliest.

The surface of this 30-dunam (7.5-acre) site was dotted with many cooking and baking installations, ash pits and stone tools, but with no architectural remains whatsoever.

The pottery repertoire included many broken storage jars and imported Greek wine

amphorae of Knidian, Koan and Rhodian types, and moulded Megarian bowls and

lamps that date from the second century B.C.E. Judging by this evidence and com

parable Hellenistic pottery which was recorded alongside ash pits and hearths under the

floors of Nabatean buildings in the main site, as well as pottery embedded in the

5 For a survey of Nabatean sites, see A. Negev: The Nabateans and the Provincia Arabia, in: Aufstieg

und Niedergang der r?mischen Welt, II, 8, Berlin-New York, 1977, pp. 1-166.



208 ELIEZER D. OREN

building material of temples and tombs, it should be concluded that Qasrawet was first

occupied as early as the second century B.C.E., serving as a station for Nabatean caravans on their way to the Gulf of Suez.6

The study of the temple and tomb architecture against the stratified record of pottery,

glass and coins, including painted Nabatean pottery, Roman sigillata wares and lamps, demonstrated that the permanent Nabatean centre at Qasrawet was already established on a grand scale by the first century B.C.E. and certainly during the first century C.E.

The changeover in the first century B.C.E. from tent-dwellers to builders of monumental

architecture actually coincides with the building by the Nabateans of large centres and

magnificent religious and civic architecture elsewhere along the major caravan routes

linking Arabia with the Mediterranean terminal ports. The monumental stone architec

ture at Qasrawet, to which every single block of gypsum stone had to be transported

many miles on camelback, through extremely rough, sandy terrain, testifies to a

prosperous Nabatean community in north-western Sinai during the first two centuries

C.E. It survived the hard times following the annexation of the Nabatean kingdom to

Provincia Arabia in 106 C.E. and the opening of alternative trade routes from Syria to

the Red Sea and Egypt, but as a commercial trading centre largely dependent on Egyp tian markets, it witnessed in the second century a period of decline resulting from the

unstable political and economic conditions prevailing in Egypt. Towards the end of the

second and in the early years of the third century C.E. Qasrawet, like other Nabatean

stations and settlements along the caravan routes in the Negev and Sinai deserts, was

repeatedly raided by Thamudic and other nomadic Arab tribes until it was finally aban

doned, though not destroyed by violence, in the late second or early third century C.E.7 as is also shown by the coins. The intensity of cultural and commercial Nabatean ac

tivity between the Negev and Egypt is now evident in the light of these discoveries, and

others elsewhere in northern Sinai, as well as the wide distribution of Nabatean rock in

scriptions in the eastern Nile Delta and central and southern Sinai.8

Concerning the location of Qasrawet, Cl?dat and later Abel have already proposed that Nabatean Qasrawet was situated on a major alternative caravan route that ran

from Petra and the Negev to Pelusium via Gebel Maghara.9 Such a road, however, is

not alluded to in any of the ancient sources, nor were there any Nabatean remains en

countered in what is perhaps the most inaccessible part of northern Sinai, between

6 See also below. 7 J. Cantineau: Le Nabat?en, I, Paris, 1930, pp. 22-25. 8

Ch. Clermont-Ganneau: Les Nabat?ens en Egypte, Recueil d'arch?ologie orientale 8 (1924), pp.

211-257; E. Littman and D. Meredith: Nabatean Inscriptions from Egypt, Bulletin of the School of Orien

tal and African Studies 16 (1954), pp. 211-246; A. Negev: South Sinai Inscriptions, in: Sinai in Antiquity

(above, n. 1), pp. 333-378; idem, New Graffiti from Sinai, IEJ 17 (1967), pp. 250-255. 9 Cl?dat (above, n. 2), p. 222; F.M. Abel: Les confins de la Palestine et de l'Egypte sous les Ptol?m?es,

RB 48 (1939), pp. 207-236. For the same view, see recently . Meshel: The Roads of the Negev According to the Geography of Ptolemy and the Tabula Peutingeriana, in Y. Aharoni (ed.): Excavations and Studies,

Essays in Honour of S. Yeivin, Tel Aviv, 1973, pp. 205-209 (Hebrew).




Gebel Maghara and Qasrawet. The absence of any reference to a Nabatean emporium in the various records of classical geographers dealing with the well-travelled coastal

highway of northern Sinai implies that Qasrawet owed its existence to one of the inner desert routes linking the coastal cities in the Bardawil (Lake Sirbonis) region with the

Gulf of Suez. At the same time the relative proximity of Qasrawet to Pelusium, about

30 km. or one day's journey, suggests that it was also accessible to travellers heading for this market. In the light of Pliny's description of the alternative routes that led from

the cities of north-eastern Sinai to the Gulf of Suez, it is indeed plausible that Qasrawet should be identified as a locality on one of these three routes.10

About a century after the Nabatean 'city' was deserted and its remains, in places 6-8 m. high, buried entirely under the sand, a new settlement was established. The latter was built partly over Nabatean remains, occupying some 30 dunams (7.5 acres) of the eastern sector of the Nabatean site (Fig. 5). This well-planned settlement was, unlike the

underlying Nabatean one, fortified by a wall and towers and its space densely filled with

houses clustered on narrow streets. The entire settlement was enclosed by a massive for

tification wall with square towers at short intervals. The houses were either built against the wall or in insulae, usually opening to narrow alleys and streets or to open piazzas.

The houses of the late Roman settlement were usually constructed of thick mud-brick

walls, often on stone foundations, and completed with stone door posts and sills (PI. 28 :C). The walls were coated with a thick clayey plaster and were periodically whitewashed. Some of the walls bore stuccoed decoration, illustrating characteristic

desert scenes such as caravans, camels, dogs, gazelles and palm trees laden with dates. The outstanding state of preservation of this settlement is seldom matched in the

archaeological record of excavation, so much so that when 'emptying' the houses of

sand, all household utensils, cooking and baking installations, storage containers and

many hundreds of stone, clay and glass vessels were found intact in the very places where they had been left by the inhabitants upon abandoning the site (PL 29:A). The

large collection of artifacts, including hundreds of coins, advocate a fourth-century C.E. date for the occupation of the fortified settlement. It was deserted hurriedly, though with no evidence of violent destruction, towards the end of that century. The Greek os

tracon11 was recorded on the upper floor of the easternmost house 15 (Fig. 5). This house was, in fact, one of the largest and best preserved units so far excavated.

The discovery of a late Roman fortified settlement, or more properly Castrum, to use

the term of the ostracon as well as the Arabic name Qasr, 'fort', raises a number of in

triguing questions. The ethnic identity of its inhabitants must be considered, as well as

the reasons for selecting the site in the first place, and its sudden abandonment in the

late fourth century C.E. Excavations in some of the houses yielded a number of clay oil

lamps decorated in relief with either Jewish symbols, Le. menorah and shqfar (PL 29 :B) or the Christian monogrammatic crosses (PL 29:C). These lamps enable us to deduce

10 See article by Y. Tsafrir, below, pp. 212-214. 11 To be published shortly by D. Rokeah.



210 ELIEZER D. OREN

11 11

Fig. 5. Late Roman Castrum to the east of Nabatean t?menos.

that the fortified settlement or garrison at Qasrawet was manned also by Jewish and

Christian soldiers or perhaps UmitaneU namely military veterans or militia. Indeed con

temporary records from Egypt inform us about the ethnic composition of military posts in Egypt during the third and fourth centuries C.E., including Arabs, Jews, Christians

and others.12 It should be noted in passing that whereas the selection of Qasrawet as a

12 J. Maspero: Organisation militaire de l'?gypte byzantine, Paris, 1912, pp. 72-81 ; J. Lesquier: L'arm?e

d'Egypte d'Auguste ? Dioct?tien, Cairo, 1918, pp. 46-49.




Nabatean trading centre is made evident in the light of Nabatean commercial activity throughout northern Sinai, the choice of the site for a military fort of Castrum in the fourth century is still to be explained. This question becomes even more acute since there is absolutely no organic continuity, but rather a long occupational gap between the two settlements. The last observation, incidentally, implies that caution should be

exercised when attempting to identify the ancient name of either the Nabatean or

late Roman settlements as Qasrawet, as they need not necessarily be the same.

The selection of Qasrawet as a military garrison or Castrum is perhaps best un

derstood against the background of the overall military organization of lower Egypt

during the Diocletianic-Theodosian period.13 In the late third century a tremendous

system of fortifications or limes was erected by Diocletian along the eastern and western frontiers of Egypt. This involved the garrisoning of legions and vexillations on

routes of strategic importance. This system functioned with minor changes for nearly two hundred years. Judging by the available third- and fourth-century documents, e.g. the Antonine Itinerary, Notitia Dignitatum and contemporary papyri,14 the eastern

frontier of Egypt was heavily garrisoned both along the actual border between Pelusium

and Clysma as well as along the coastal stretch from Gaza via Rhinocorura and Gerra to Pelusium. This line of defence, correctly named by Price the limes of Augustamnica, was designed to provide effective defence against possible invasion from across the Sinai desert.15 It was complemented by additional, though smaller, detachments of soldiers as well as militia ? limitanei units that were stationed in staging posts along in ner desert routes, villages, water points and desert oases. The latter performed various

paramilitary duties such as local defence against Bedouin raids, strengthening the civil administration in police work, collection of taxes and escorting caravans and travellers. For a situation similar to that of north-western Sinai, where travelling was done along isolated water points, we have evidence exactly from the period of the Qasrawet Castrum in the Itinerarium Egeriae.16 Egeria, travelling from Clysma at the head of the Gulf of Suez to Pelusium, via the city of Arabia, proceeded along several staging posts, manned by small military units who had the task of escorting travellers from one point to the next.17 As Qasrawet was not situated on the first line of defence, nor on any

strategically important road, it is most likely that our Castrum was selected primarily for

providing Egypt's eastern frontier with effective local defence against Bedouin raids and

various paramilitary duties.

13 For detailed study see Maspero and Lesquier (above, n. 12). 14 J. Ball: Egypt in the Classical Geographers, Cairo, 1942, pp. 138-144; O. Cuntz: Itineraria Romana,

I, Leipzig, 1929, pp. 21-23. 15 R.M. Price: The Limes of Lower Egypt, in R. Goodburn and R. Bartholemew (eds.): Aspects of the

Notitia Dignitatum, British Archaeology Reports, Supp. Series 15, Oxford, 1976, pp. 143-154. 16

Ibid., p. 154, n. 16; P. Mayerson: The Pilgrim Routes to Mt. Sinai and the Armenians, above, pp. 44-47. 17

Negev (above, n. 8, South Sinai Inscriptions), pp. 377-378, n. 21, proposed the identification of

Qasrawet with the city of Arabia. He failed, however, to notice that Arabia was located at the western end

of Wadi Tumilat, see Price (above, n. 15), map in Fig. 8.



PLATE 27

: Western temple, altar with betyls.

EXCAVATIONS AT QASRAWET



PLATE 28




PLATE 29

settlement.

C: Oil lamps with Christian symbols from ^^B^^ Late Roman settlement.




Oren, E.D. 1982. Excavations at Qasrawet in North-Western Sinai: Preliminary Report. IEJ 32.4:...

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