Preliminary Report on the 1996 Swiss-Liechtenstein excavations at ez Zantur
by Bernhard Kolb (with contributions by Daniel Keller and Regine Fellmann Brogli)
VI. Ez Zantur I: The workshop area
During the campaign of 1996 further parts of the workshop area at the northwestern foot of the big nabataean house had been cleared Cf. Campaign 1994: 298, fig. 1. . It is now clear that rooms XXI and XXV are connected to a narrow L-shaped courtyard (fig. 13).
Fig. 13: EZ I. General view of the rooms XXI and XXV from the north-east (photo: R. Frank)
Unlike the coarsly stone paved room XXV, room XXV (4.5 x 3.5 m) has a floor of beaten earth. A small channel runs from a gullyhole in the courtyard under the sill of the northwestern door of room XXV, crosses the room at a slight inclination and disappears under the sill of the southwestern door. The finds confirm the decades 70/80 AD as the date of destruction of the workshops XXI and XXV Schmid 1996c: 170ff. .
The findings along room XXV’s northwestern outer wall give new indications for the build up of the private quarters north of ez Zantur: In PQ 106/O we excavated down to a level of 2 m below the floor-level in room XXV without reaching the wall’s foundation or a floor. The rooms, steeply terraced, obviously follow the inclination of the slope. The building’s close reference to the terrain conditions may explain the fact that the walls of the workshops do not connect to the house on the terrace at a right angle: The humble rooms were constructed favourably in relation to the slope causing the oblique angle between them and the northwestern outer wall of the house on the terrace Campaign 1993: 272f., figs. 1–3. .
