Abbasid era in Gadara: Economic prosperity, earthquake devastation, urban transformation

AMMAN — The Abbasid presence at Gadara (modern Umm Qais) was mentioned in the works of Arab mediaeval geographers and scholars. That period was also characterised by series of catastrophic earthquakes in 749AD and 1033AD.

The political centres switched from Levant and Damascus towards Iraq and Baghdad during the Abbasid period. 

The accession of the Abbasids to power in 750AD coincided, in its early period, till circa 930AD, with a period of stability; a situation which was encouraging for traders to pursue their activities in more or less, a usual way, and the wheel of commerce and trade turned heavily in order to meet the demand. 

“The main routes of trade ran between Iraq, Syria and Jordan to carry goods of many kinds; Al Muqaddasi, the tenth century most observant geographer, mentioned some branch routes crossing the Syrian region, the configuration of Bilad Al Sham gave access to merchants at the Mediterranean ports, to dispatch their goods easily to the inland towns,” said Lamia Khouri from Yarmouk University in Irbid.

“The Abbasid shift of the centre of the Caliphate from Syria to Iraq led to a rapid economic decline and drop in population, especially in the cities,” Khouri stressed, adding that the settlement focus seems to have shifted from the traditional urban centres to formerly marginal area; in addition, Abbasid levels or sites have not been often identified because of the misdating of Abbasid ceramic types to the Umayyad period, while Umayyad types were misdated to the Byzantine period.

“The Abbasid period is very well attested in most of the squares in the excavated area through the architectural remains and some common Abbasid pottery types,” Khouri said, adding that according to the architectural sequence of the Abbasid structure, it is evident that the area was used for residential purposes.

Khouri thinks that there are two phases of occupation at the Abbasid period. The main encountered problem in the second phase is that the fill from those rooms is fairly homogeneous, the pottery is hardly dated, most of the floors were of compacted- soil type, and hardly been detected, therefore it was difficult to determine an exact stratigraphy of those phases, the scholar underlined.

“The first Abbasid occupational phase could be dated to 750-800, and the second phase to 800-1000/1050,” Khouri said, noting that the Abbasid architectural remains of the first phase of occupation were constructed either by using the ancient architectural remains or by building other walls that are based mainly on soil.

Floors could be seen in some places, they are either compact earthen soil or (most probably reused) mosaic floors and it seems clear that the Abbasid period architecture were constructed after the 749AD earthquake, the scholar explained.

The reuse of ancient architectural remains in this phase was visible in the north-western corner of the excavated area. Along the colonnaded street a wall, running east-west, built of regular lime-stone blocks in header and stretcher technique was excavated.

The Abbasid pottery was numerous and found almost in all the excavated squares, mixed in most cases with Byzantine and Umayyad pottery; this, due in part, to the nature of the occupation of the site of Umm Qais, from Byzantine to Umayyad and Abbasid eras, and from another side it could be affected by the earthquake of 749AD.

The pottery was divided in: The cream ware jugs made of thin pale cream or buff-coloured ware; Polychrome and monochrome glazed bowls; Buff ware objects; Abbasid lamps, mostly decorated with geometric designs and the cut-ware or Kerbschnitt handmade bowls. 

“The development and fate of the rural sites was intimately connected with the trade routes. It is therefore not surprising that, like Umm Qais, these sites flourished from at least the 7th to the 10th or 11th centuries. In fact, the settlement pattern in the vicinity of Umm Qais presents a strikingly different picture in the Roman-Byzantine and early Islamic periods,” Khouri underscored.