Casting Light on Humayma’s Roman Town
Lilly Hickox, 2021 Eric and Carol Meyers Summer Stipend Recipient
Hickox studying the lamps of Humayma’s vicus. (photo courtesy of M. Schwenteck)
Humayma, located in the northwest corner of Jordan’s Hisma desert, is a site with a long history of permanent settlement with Nabataean, Roman, Byzantine, and early Islamic periods. Excavations at the Roman town (vicus) have been carried out since the 1990s under the direction of Dr. J.P. Oleson from 1991 to 2005 and Dr. M. Barbara Reeves from 2008 to present.
This summer, I researched the ceramic oil lamps and fragments from the vicus at Humayma remotely. The vicus emerged concurrently with the nearby Roman Fort, shortly after the conquest of the Nabataean Kingdom in 106 CE by Emperor Trajan. This research was made possible through ASOR’s Summer Stipend program and funding supported by the Eric and Carol Meyers Scholarship Fund.
The question driving my research was sparked by the findings from my 2020 undergraduate thesis project, Shedding Light on an Ancient Past: The Analysis of Ceramic Oil Lamps from the Roman Fort at Humayma. During this project, I identified a paucity of Roman-style lamps at the Roman Fort, while Nabataean and South Jordan lamps were prevalent. In order to understand why this was happening at the Fort and how the absence of Roman identity in the lamps relates to the activity of the overall settlement, I specifically looked at the corpus from the vicus this summer.
A Nabataean rosette lamp, one of the most prolific types at the vicus. (photo provided by Dr. M. Barbara Reeves, director of the Humayma Excavation Project)
In this project, I investigated the ceramic oil lamps from three different areas of the vicus. The first area (E077) contained first century CE Nabataean structures that were built over by a bath-house in the Roman period. The Nabataean rosette lamp, dating to the first century CE, likely corresponds to the phase preceding the early second century destruction. Many early Byzantine lamps and some late Roman lamps signify the later occupation of the area.
The second area (E128), a Nabataean or Roman mudbrick structure, contained a majority of Nabataean-style lamps. This structure, made of eclectic materials, was built between the late first century and the middle of the second century. Remarkably, a figural lamp and a boot-shaped lamp were identified in this location, which are both rare for the corpus of the vicus. The boot-shape lamp may align with the later function of the structure in which the area was used as pottery dump until the sixth century CE.
A Roman discus lamp with a gladiatorial combat scene. (photo provided by Dr. M. Barbara Reeves, director of the Humayma Excavation Project)
The final area that I examined was E125, an area possessing a Nabataean-Roman shrine, and various domestic structures, such as a Roman insula. This area yielded the greatest number of lamp fragments, the vast majority being the Nabataean rosette lamp, while fewer were Roman in style. At least three figural lamps were identified, including a symplegma and gladiatorial combat scene. Overall, the lamps from the vicus show a strong parallel with those from Petra.
While this project did not constitute typical field work, it nevertheless presented its own unique challenges. For instance, I relied only on photographic media that was sometimes supplemented by artifact descriptions in order to make an assessment.
Lamp fragments from the E125 shrine. (photo provided by Dr. M. Barbara Reeves, director of the Humayma Excavation Project)
This project contributed to the understanding of the civilian activity at Humayma and may be used to help develop stratigraphic phasing for these areas in the vicus. My next steps will be to look more closely at several anomalous items in the corpus and their parallels. I presented a critical analysis of my findings, considering the corpus from the Fort, at the virtual component of ASOR’s Annual General Meeting in December 2021 (Click here to view the poster).
I would like to personally thank Dr. Reeves for her ongoing support, supervision, and expertise, as well as the Humayma Excavation team for their work, Carol and Eric Meyers for making this possible, and M. Schwenteck for assisting me in translations.
Lilly Hickox is an MA student of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of British Columbia. She has been researching the ceramic oil lamps from various locations at Humayma since 2020.
References:
Reeves, M. B. 2019. “The Nabataean and Roman Towns at al-Ḥumayma: an Urban Design Perspective.” Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan 13: 115-127.
