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| Qasr et-Tuba. © APAAMEG_20130412_REB-0061. |
Our first field trip of the season! It was a short jaunt down the Desert HWY on a beautiful moderate day to visit the sites of Khan es-Zabib, Qasr et-Tuba and some World War One trenches located next to the Hijaz Railway.
Something we found quite amusing was that for the more major sites of Khan es-Zabib and Qasr et-Tuba there were signs, but only at the preliminary turn off from the Desert HWY, and only if you were traveling north to Amman. In the case of Qasr et-Tuba, the sign was of little help as you have to turn off the road to a dirt track and drive a further 2 km or so - none of which is conveniently sign posted or easy to spot from the road.
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| A gouge taken out of the outer rooms of Khan es-Zabib. © APAAMEG_20130412_RHB-0005 |
Nonetheless, we made it to all sites. Khan es-Zabib is a Caravanserai located along the Hajj route to Mecca. Today, it is conveniently located right next to a road and well visible, some walls still standing well over a metre high. The Department of Antiquities have excavated the site and the clean backfilling of the surface of the site is evident by the lack of sherds of pottery lying around. There has been some interesting incursions into the site however with two gouging scoop marks clearly evident in the north and west outer rows of rooms, and numerous excavated holes over the site, one of which revealed sections of crude wall plastering. Walk further to the east, past the excavated church (only foundations) and the amount of surface pottery markedly increases, and some traces of walls are just evident on the surface. There is also a cistern in use. The site clearly is larger than the excavated Khan and Church areas and may warrant further investigation.
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| Cistern? near Khan es-Zabib. © APAAMEG_20130412_MND-0029. |
