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Nothing but Cold Ashes? The Cairn Burials of Jebel Qurma, Northeastern Jordan
Author(s): Peter M. M. G. Akkermans and Merel L. Brüning
Source:
Near Eastern Archaeology,
Vol. 80, No. 2, Repopulating the Badia (June 2017), pp.
132-139
Published by: The American Schools of Oriental Research
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5615/neareastarch.80.2.0132
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132 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.2 (2017)
Some 130 km east of Amman, close to the Jordanian-Saudi
border, is the barren range of Jebel Qurma. This area is an
extensive and rugged low basalt massif, with steep-sided,
basalt-covered prominences and rocky dissected plateaus, all of
which make travel in this region difficult. Extensive gravel plains
extend beyond the forbidding, basaltic uplands, alternating with
mud flats of varying size and low ranges of limestone hillocks.
The area is highly arid, with an average annual precipitation
of less than 50 mm. The hot summers and often severe winters
add substantially to the harsh and inhospitable character of
the Jebel Qurma heights. Captain Lionel Rees, who was in the
region in the early 1900s, described the hostile area: “Except
for a short period in the spring the whole of this country looks
like a dead fire – nothing but cold ashes” (Rees 1929: 389). It
comes as no surprise that the landscape remains difficult to
inhabit, except for the occasional small and dispersed Bedouin
groups. Nowadays, single tents occur here and there near wadis
and mud flats for a couple of weeks in the rainy season, each
of them usually several kilometers away from their nearest
neighbor. These people seem to come mainly from the region
around Irbid and Mafraq in northern Jordan and bring their
herds of sheep and goats by truck to the Jebel Qurma area for
grazing, but only in years with sufficient rainfall.
e rather uninviting appearance of Jebel Qurma is dicult
to reconcile with the astonishingly rich archaeological and ep-
igraphic record of the region, which testies to the presence of
indigenous peoples that wandered about the basalt range many
hundreds or even thousands of years ago. ere are very large
numbers of stone-built installations of dierent types and siz-
es, in addition to the innumerable pieces of rock art and texts
in ancient North Arabian script. ey demonstrate that Jordan’s
northeastern desert was once home to thriving desert lifeways,
thus challenging any preconceived ideas of marginality or cul-
tural insignicance. Environmental conditions may have been
more favorable (wetter, greener) during some periods in the past
than today, although this is still a matter of investigation.
Hilltop Cairns
It goes without saying that in any region where people once
lived in substantial numbers, they must have died in equally
large numbers. While the foci of daily living and domestic ac-
tivity were in secluded areas at the foot of the basaltic uplands
or in the deep valleys through which wadis run, it appears that
the preferential areas for the disposal of the dead were on the
surrounding high plateaus and the summits of the basalt hills.
Our recent surveys and excavations in these relatively remote,
high locales in the Jebel Qurma region, away from the main are-
as of habitation, have identied many hundreds of cairns. ese
are mounds of stone of varying shapes and sizes that were usu-
ally set up as the burial place of local inhabitants (g. 1). ey
range from low and roughly circular heaps of stone about 1.5 m
across and 0.7–0.8 m in height to impressive tombs up to 10 m in
diameter and 2 m in height. Some cairns were conical mounds
of basalt blocks, sometimes provided with a constellation of
“ ‘Except for a short period in the spring
the whole of this country looks like a dead re –
nothing but cold ashes’ ” (Rees 1929: 389).
Nothing but Cold Ashes?
The Cairn Burials of Jebel Qurma, Northeastern Jordan
Peter M. M. G. Akkermans and Merel L. Brüning
The Jebel Qurma range: basalt-covered mounds and plateaus, with endless plains of gravel and rock in front of them.
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NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.2 (2017) 133
Figure 1. A typical hilltop cairn in the Jebel Qurma region, with its conical pile of basalt blocks.
Figure 2. Documenting a small cairn in the Early Bronze Age cemetery in the Jebel Qurma area.
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134 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.2 (2017)
up to several dozen smaller cairns. Other tombs
were in the form of sizable round towers, which
could have smaller cist graves attached to them.
Many cairns had a circular or, more oen, cres-
cent-shaped installation consisting of a low and
roughly piled stone wall added to their exteri-
or, which may have served for ritual purpose at
the time of burial and mourning. Occasionally
shallow replaces were located in these features,
which, according to analyzed radiocarbon dates,
appear to stem from repeated visits to these cairns
in Medieval to modern times. Finally, small circles
of upright-standing stones occur near some of the
cairns, suggesting some kind of funerary meaning.
e stone circles are about 1.2 m across, and while
they had no covering, their interiors were partly
lled with small blocks and pebbles to create a lev-
el surface or “platform.”
In general, the deceased were put to rest either
in a small burial chamber or simply between the
rocks lling in the cairns. Hence they were essen-
tially graves above ground, with the corpses mere-
ly resting below a cover of stones and close to the Figure 3. Pottery vessels found in the tombs of the Early Bronze Age cairn eld.
Figure 4. The tower tomb at the site of QUR-2, with its straight façade made of large basalt slabs. Many of these building stones weigh around 200–300 kg, suggesting that the
construction of the tower was the work of a team instead of an individual.
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NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.2 (2017) 135
Other constraints relating to matters of skeletal preservation
and regular reuse of the tombs are inherent in the research of
cairn burials. During our surveys and excavations, the levels of
preservation were so poor that skeletons were oen crushed by
the overlying rocks. Moreover, their vicinity to the surface made
them very vulnerable to the uctuating and extreme climatic
conditions of the area. e activities of insects and rodents of-
ten exacerbated the poor preservation of skeletal remains or in
some cases le no bones at all. Indeed, the well-known passage
from the book of Genesis (3:19), “for dust thou art, and unto dust
shalt thou return,” should be taken literally in the desert. Cairns
also appear to have been frequently reused, even long aer their
original date of construction. Oen the reuse could only be ac-
complished through disturbing or even obliterating older buri-
als in the mounds. e custom of constructing cairns for burial
seems to have ended in the Jebel Qurma range around the fourth
surface. True inhumations, in the sense of burial pits dug into
the ground, seem to occur relatively late in the local sequence,
namely, from the fourth century .. or Byzantine period on-
wards.
Investigation into the complex nature of these cairns is not
always easy. An unfortunate (predominantly modern) devel-
opment is the very considerable looting of tombs, which oen
includes their wholesale destruction. Although the aforemen-
tioned Captain Rees noticed the poor state of many cairns in
the desert already almost a century ago, the scale of the tomb
robbing has increased very signicantly in the past decade. In-
deed, most of the large and visually prominent cairns have been
pillaged in recent years, leading to an immense loss of cultural
knowledge and insight into ancient mortuary customs in the ba-
salt wasteland (see, e.g., Kersel and Chesson 2013 on the devas-
tating consequences of looting in Jordan).
Figure 5. A beautiful piece of rock art from the burial site of QUR-529, showing an archer hunting two lions.
The associated inscription in Safaitic reads: l rgl bn zmhr bn ͖s h-h
.yt, which is translated “By Rāgel son of Zamhar
son of ’Aws are the animals.”
Figure 6. A 3D image of the tower tomb and its associated burials at the site of QUR-2 in the Jebel Qurma region:
(1) central tower tomb of the rst century B.C. to rst century C.E.; (2–5) cist graves (and remnants thereof) of the rst
to second century C.E.; (6–7) late Ottoman to colonial-period Islamic cairns. Indication of scale: the central tower is
4.8 m in exterior diameter.
Figure 7 . A colorful necklace with beads made of stone, glass,
and shell, from one of the cist graves at the site of QUR-2.
Figure 8. Earrings made of bronze and gold, from the cist
graves at the site of QUR-2 (nos. 1–3) and from one of the ring
cairns at QUR-9 (no. 4).
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136 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.2 (2017)
century .., although many preexisting cairns received new in-
terments long aer that. Cairns, it appears, were avoided for the
disposal of the dead during almost the entire Islamic period and
only were commonly reused for graves from the (late) Ottoman
period onwards. e latter observation is at odds with commonly
held perceptions of the Muslim treatment of the dead; however,
Jenny Bradbury has recently (2016) argued against an idealized,
static, or uniform portrayal of Islamic burial practice, under-
scoring instead the considerable variation over time and space.
Hilltop burials in the desert are oen notoriously dicult to
date, owing to factors such as their limited preservation, their
oen generic morphology, and the palimpsest of contents result-
ing from their continual reuse. With regard to the abundance of
prehistoric sites in the Jebel Qurma region (Akkermans, Hui-
gens, and Brüning 2016), we may assume that many cairns in the
area are likewise prehistoric in origin. ere is however little or
nothing to substantiate this claim at present. e earliest secure-
ly dated cairns in the Jebel Qurma basalt uplands belong to the
Early Bronze Age, while many more cairns, it appears, date to
more recent historical periods.
An Early Bronze Age Cemetery
An extensive burial eld, consisting of some y small cairns
up to 2.2 m across and 1.2 m in height, is located high on the
slope of a basalt-covered hillock. It has a panoramic view over
the meandering ood plain of Wadi Rajil, a major route through
the basalt and an excellent location given its seasonal opportuni-
ties for water provisions. e area selected for cairn construction
was used previously for groupings of stone-walled enclosures,
and had large concentrations of concave truncation burins of
Late Neolithic date (ca. 6400–6100 ...; see Betts 2013). e
cairns were clearly later extensions, partly set on the enclosures’
walls; the contemporary site(s) for the living community con-
nected with the cemetery remains elusive so far.
Our excavations made clear that the cairns (g. 2) were all
constructed in roughly the same way. First, a small, low corbelled
burial chamber was made. Second, the burial chamber was sur-
rounded by a ring of large stones (sometimes stacked two or three
courses high). ird, the space between the chamber and the out-
er ring was lled in with stones, adding both stability and visi-
bility to the cairn. In some cases, the burial chambers were cor-
belled in their entirety; in other cases they were closed by one or
more large and at capstones. e chambers were always roughly
round in shape, between 0.7 and 1 m in diameter and 0.4–0.7 m
high; hence, they cannot have been used for interment in supine
position but must have facilitated contracted burial, with the de-
ceased resting on its side. Unfortunately the preservation of the
skeletal remains in the tombs was extremely poor, with at most a
few small fragments of bones or teeth remaining.
Only very few of the dead were provided with grave goods.
One cairn yielded a int tabular scraper, while four other burials
each had a single pottery vessel in the shape of a small, short-
necked jar with a at base and, sometimes, loop handles (g. 3).
ese pots are closely reminiscent of the amphoriskoi found at,
for example, Tell Umm Hammad and its associated necropolis
at Tiwal esh-Sharqi in the central Jordan Valley (see, e.g., Tubb,
Henderson, and Wright 1990; Kennedy 2015), or in the cemeter-
ies of Bab edh-Dhra and Fifa near the Dead Sea (Schaub and Rast
1989; Chesson and Schaub 2007). Given the material, these com-
parisons point towards a date in the late Early Bronze Age (ca.
2300–2000 ...) for the cairn eld in the Jebel Qurma region.
Signicantly, the abandonment of the cemetery—and, by as-
sociation, the places for the corresponding living community—
seems to have coincided with the wholesale withdrawal from the
Jebel Qurma region for a period of roughly 1,500–2,000 years,
Figure 9. Aerial photo of a typical “ring cairn” at the site of QUR-9 (structure 5). The circular burial chamber in the heart of the cairn is clearly visible, with a cover of basalt blocks around it.
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NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.2 (2017) 137
examples include the Iron Age settlements and graveyard in
the vicinity of Qaf and Ithra at the onset of the Wadi Sirhan,
near the Saudi-Jordan border (Adams et al. 1977: 36).
Tower Tombs and Ring Cairns
A major renewal of local settlement appears to have
taken place from the Hellenistic to the Ummayad periods,
from about the third century ... to the eighth century
.. Stone-walled enclosures and irregular clearings about
20–50 m across, many of which yielded limited distributions
of pottery, may have served as regular but short-lived camp-
ing sites. Mortuary practices continued the previous way of
erecting cairns over the dead on prominent elevations, yet
novel types of burial made their appearance in this period.
An outstanding example is the emergence of monumental
round structures up to 5 m in diameter and 1.5 m high, which
dier from the other cairns by their distinct tower-like shape
and their clear, straight facade made of large, attened basalt
slabs (g. 4). Moreover, these “tower tombs” originally lacked
the conical covering heap of stones so characteristic of almost
all other cairns in the basalt region. Whenever the tower
tombs did have a massive stone cover, it appears to have been
due to the construction of secondary graves against the tower
at a later stage. Each tower was solidly lled in with basalt
boulders, except for the small, corbelled burial chamber cov-
ered with capstones in its center. Although in most cases the
chamber had been breached, some human bones and grave
goods (mainly jewelry) were still in and around it.
e tower tombs tend to carry some Safaitic inscriptions
and petroglyphs (g. 5), with many more in their immediate
surroundings. ey are oen considered to have a funerary
meaning (cf. Macdonald 2015; Al-Jallad 2015, and references
therein, for a recent evaluation). However, our excavations
indisputably revealed that the towers were built with rocks
that had already previously been inscribed with Safaitic texts,
and so they must postdate the inscriptions. A number of ra-
diocarbon dates from tower tombs in the Jebel Qurma region
suggest a date for their construction between the rst century
from the late third millennium ... until the occurrence of the so-
called Safaitic groups in the late rst millennium ... e apparent
absence of nd spots for such a long period of time is remarkable
and remains as yet unexplained, although few and disparate sites
from this period can be found at the fringes of the desert. Notable
Figure 10. Aerial photo of a “pendant burial” in the Jebel Qurma range. The chain consisting of about twenty small, individual cairns leads to the left of the large cairn at the head.
Photo by Rebecca Banks, APAAME_20130418_REB-0197.
Figure 11. The ring cairn 9 at the site of QUR-9. The image above shows the plan of the
cairn, while the image below is a 3D section through the same cairn. (1) the circular ring
of stones bounding the burial chamber; (2) the interior of the burial chamber; (3) the
stone cover around the burial chamber.
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138 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.2 (2017)
... and the rst century .., although they appear to have
been reused repeatedly for burial in later periods.
Several tower tombs had rectangular cist graves attached to
them, which were up to 2.7 m long, 1.5 m wide, and 1 m high, and
oriented roughly east–west (g. 6). e cist burials had carefully
constructed dry-stone walls with smooth outer facades, and their
interiors were entirely lled with rocks. Underneath the piles of
stone were the skeletal remains of one, or sometimes two, indi-
viduals, who lay in a crouched position with the head to the east,
facing north. Relatively rich nds were recovered from the cist
graves, including necklaces made of colorful stone, glass paste,
and shell, as well as rings made of bronze and iron (gs. 7 and 8).
In one tomb there were ve bronze earrings, each adorned with a
centerpiece of semiprecious stone anked by pearls or small glass
beads (g. 8, nos. 1–3). ere was also an iron cloak pin or, per-
haps, a belt buckle among the skeletal remains. Interestingly, one
cist grave had four Seleucid bronze coins (Charon’s obol imme-
diately comes to mind), one of which could be securely dated to
the reign of Antiochus IX (114–95 ...). A radiocarbon sample
from skeletal remains in another cist grave gave a much later date
in the rst to second century ..
e coins were evidently nonlocal products, as were the met-
al and glass pieces of jewelry, which must have been procured
through direct or indirect exchange with urban environments
beyond the desert where such materials were typically manufac-
tured. On the other hand, some of the beads and pendants made
of limestone and shells of land snails may have been produced by
the desert communities themselves.
Tower tombs are relatively rare in the Jebel Qurma region and
the basalt region at large, and their distribution is restricted to
prominent high rises near major routes through the basalt waste-
land. A much more common type of burial was the so-called
“ring cairn,” which measures up to 8 m in diameter and 2 m
high (g. 9). Ring cairns oen had a chain of ve to y small
cairns attached to them (g. 10), and it is easy to see why these
installations are sometimes called “pendants” (see
Kennedy 2011: 3189–90). Our excavation of sev-
eral of these smaller cairns revealed that they were
simple piles of stone, some built more carefully than
others, but with no evidence whatsoever of a burial
in or underneath them. David Kennedy has suggest-
ed that these cairns in chains served to commem-
orate a respected deceased individual by erecting
small stone heaps in the course of successive visits
(2011: 3190).
e ring cairns dier from the tower tombs not
only because of their abundant occurrence or their
common tail of smaller cairns, but also because of
their method of construction. ey had a roughly
nished circular burial chamber about 2–3 m in di-
ameter, which was always concealed underneath a
substantial deposit of stones, giving these cairns their
typical conical shape (g. 11). Moreover, the burial
chamber was nearly always entirely lled in with
stone, with the rocks directly piled upon the dead.
e date of construction of these ring cairns
remains uncertain for a variety of reasons and OSL (Optically
Stimulated Luminescence) determinations are currently awaited
to solve the matter. ere is substantial evidence for the contin-
ual reuse of the cairns over the ages, from the Hellenistic period
until the late Ottoman or even modern times. One ring cairn
revealed the perfectly preserved remains of a young man aged
between 21 and 30 years at the time of death. He was resting on
his right side in an extremely contracted position, with the head
to the east and the face looking north (g. 12). A radiocarbon
sample gave a date in the h or sixth centuries .. (Byzantine
period) for this grave.
Signicantly, no grave goods were associated with this male
burial. However, a golden earring (see g. 8, no. 4) and a number
of beads made of stone, glass, faience, and bronze were found,
together with a few human teeth fragments, in the stone cover
outside of the burial chamber proper. ese nds, we believe,
were the remnants of an earlier burial, which was removed from
the central chamber when the young male was interred in it.
Commemorative Places
e many cairns in the Jebel Qurma region served the needs
of local communities in the disposition of their dead over time.
While the number of cairns currently identied in the area to-
tals in the many hundreds, the actual number of men, women,
and children buried in them must be much higher, because of
their regular reuse. e cairns are widely distributed across the
“The graveyards reect a consistent habit of
bringing the dead to specic grounds imbued
with social meaning and memory—sites that
were vital to the desert communities. “
Figure 12. The grave of a young man, buried in an extremely contracted position on his side inside the ring cairn 9
at QUR-9. The well-preserved skeletal remains were radiocarbon-dated to 425–580 cal C.E. (95.4% reliability).
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NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.2 (2017) 139
basalt-strewn upland terrain, and they usually occur either alone
or in small groups of two or three. eir clustering into more
substantial cemeteries has been established only in a few in-
stances, with the Early Bronze Age cairn eld described above as
the clearest example. e graveyards reect a consistent habit of
bringing the dead to specic grounds imbued with social mean-
ing and memory—sites that were vital to the desert communities.
Additionally we should not simply conclude that the many
singular burial cairns were merely pragmatic, ad hoc containers
for the dead placed randomly in the landscape. eir common
placement on eye-catching elevations that aord panoramic
vantage points was a key consideration for the cairn builders,
with maximum prominence and visibility in mind.e elaborate
tower tombs in particular were powerful and permanent vehicles
for commemorating the dead and linked the past and present
in a highly visual and public way. Far from being “secretive” or
understood by insiders only, these tombs were easily recognized
by locals and foreign visitors to the region alike and may have in-
spired awe and reverence. ese burial grounds must have been
liminal places full of social memory; the continual reuse and the
repeated burial events at these sites over many centuries conrm
their long-lived role as focal points for social and ritual gather-
ings of the communities in the area.
Acknowledgements
Our yearly surveys and excavations in the Jebel Qurma region
would not have been possible without the help of a dedicated
team in the eld and at home. anks go in particular to Ahmad
Al-Jallad, Monique Arntz, Koen Berghuijs, Nathalie Brusgaard,
Chiara Della Puppa, Rosemarie Hietanen, Harmen Huigens,
Sarah Inskip, Migchel Migchelsen, Hans van der Plicht, Maikel
van Stiphout, and omas Vijgen. Our sincere gratitude also goes
to the Department of Antiquities in Amman, in particular to its
representatives in the eld: Wesam Esaid, Mohamad Atoum, and
Ashraf Khraysheh. Funding was provided by the Faculty of Ar-
chaeology of Leiden University, the Leiden University Fund, and
the Netherlands Organization for Scientic Research (NWO).
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Peter Akkermans is professor of Near Eastern archaeology in the Faculty of
Archaeology of Leiden University, The Netherlands. He has over thirty years
of experience in directing archaeological research in Syria and Jordan, and is
currently head of the Jebel Qurma Archaeological Landscape Project in Jordan’s
northeastern desert.
Merel Brüning is a research assistant in the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden
University, The Netherlands. She has been involved in surveys and excavations
in the Jebel Qurma region since 2012, and is currently researching the cairn
graves in the area. Previously she was an assistant eld director at the site of
Tell Sabi Abyad in Syria.
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