Preliminary Report on the 2001 Swiss-Liechtenstein excavations at ez Zantur
by Bernhard Kolb and Daniel Keller
IV. Ez Zantur IV: The cisterns of rooms 22, 27 and 17 (southern substruction)
A team of six workmen was entrusted for the duration of the campaign with the difficult and complex task of clearing the rubble-fill from the cisterns beneath rooms 27 and 22. In order not unduly to endanger the damaged floor structure of room 27, the remaining rubble amounting to approximately 40 cubic metres had to be hauled up in buckets on ropes. This procedure was also used in the neighbouring cistern 22, although in this area the rubble could only be cleared down to floor level in the northern half of the rock-hewn installation. Thanks to the care taken in clearing the rubble, the waterproof layer of hydraulic mortar on the cistern walls was very largely preserved (Figs. 11–12).
Fig. 11: Cistern under room 27: view to the east of the rock-hewn communicating tunnel to the cistern under the adjacent room 22 (photo: D. Keller)
The water stored in cistern 27 originally flowed from a smaller, likewise rock-hewn cistern located to the north under room 34 through a vertical rectangular opening 1.45 m high and 0.4 m wide (Fig. 1) The connection was walled up and sealed with hydraulic mortar at an unknown point in time. . The neighbouring cistern under room 22 also has a storage installation further to the north which communicated with the main storage container via a shaft, and even the two main cisterns were linked by a tunnel 0.8 m wide and approx. 1.5 wide under wall AM (cf. Fig. 11). The water storage complex in squares 92–93/AL–AM is of first-class workmanship and in excellent repair but provides no clues as to the route followed by the lost water conduit(s) that fed the cisterns. The finds deposited on the floors of the cisterns show that the cisterns were used and maintained up into the 4th century The small amounts of sand deposited on the cistern floors indicate that maintenance and cleaning work continued until the very end. .
Fig. 12: Cistern under room 27: view of the west wall and the roof construction (photo: D. Keller)
In the southern substruction of room 17, the removal of the rubble-fill from the small cistern of the earlier building which began in the previous year was completed see ADAJ 45, 2001: 317–319. . We again recovered many fallen architectural fragments and fragments of the wall and ceiling decoration from room 17. The rich finds of curved stuccoed cornice fragments were evidence that banqueting room 17 was roofed by a barrel vault (Fig. 13).
Fig. 13: Room 17: fragments of the dentil cornice from the lunette of the barrel-vaulted ceiling (photo: R. Hügli)
Some sequences of the wall decor could also be reconstructed. Fig. 14 shows the margin of an endless repeat pattern consisting of polychrome octagons and squares which is terminated by a painted stucco profile with a key-pattern frieze. The achieved wallpaper effect is reminiscent of decoration systems of the 4th Pompeiian Style from the last third of the 1st century AD The small amounts of sand deposited on the cistern floors indicate that maintenance and cleaning work continued until the very end. .
Fig. 14: Room 17, wall decoration: endless repeat pattern consisting of octagons and squares with terminal key-pattern frieze and stuccoed ledge (photo: R. Hügli)
In other words we can assume that the preserved parts of the decoration of room 17 belong to construction phase 2 and date from the early 2nd century. However, the system „à la mode romaine“ has – quite characteristically of the Nabataeans – been enriched with elements that are not found on contemporary Roman walls, such as the notching of the outlines of both the squares and the octagons. Here we thus have an anachronistic element which originates from the Hellenistic Masonry Style which was highly esteemed by the Nabataeans and was combined with contemporary decor types in the described form Cf. Kolb 2001: 441–442 with bibliographical references. .
