Humayma Excavation Project I

Resources, History and the Water-Supply System

by John Peter Oleson, with technical reports by G. Brown, M. Finnegan, J. D. Mitchell and C. T. Shay

Book cover: Humayma Excavation Project I

Extent: 560 pages

Publisher: American Society of Overseas Research

Subjects: Ancient Near East

Series: Archaeological Reports

Series volume number: 15

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(December 2010)

ISBN: 9780897570831

Price: $20.00

In stock

Humayma was the only significant settlement in the Hisma. Founded by a Nabataean king in the late first century B.C., the site flourished for 750 years as a Nabataean, Roman, Byzantine, and Early Islamic settlement. In 25 years of survey and excavation, the author has recovered unique architectural and artifactual remains of these cultures.


Humayma, ancient Hawara, was the only significant settlement in the Hisma, the desert between Petra and Aqaba. Founded by a Nabataean king in the late first century B.C., the site flourished for 750 years as a Nabataean, Roman, Byzantine, and Early Islamic settlement. In 25 years of survey and excavation, the author has recovered unique architectural and artifactual remains of all these cultures. In this final report volume, the first of four, he presents the topography and ecology of the region, the history of the site, and a detailed examination of the integrated water-supply system that made the settlement possible. A long synthetic chapter evaluates this system in the context of the water-supply technology of the ancient Near East. This book will be of interest to both students and scholars concerned with ancient hydraulic technology, the Nabataeans, the Romans in the Near East, early Byzantine culture, and the origins of the Abbasid family.

  • By (author) John Peter Oleson

"This volume has been eagerly anticipated by scholars of antiquity in the southern Levant...[it] will have a broad interdisciplinary appeal for an audience that ranges from scholars of Near Eastern antiquity to modern geographers, environmental scientists, and hydraulic engineers." -- Tina M. Niemi, University of Missouri-Kansas City "This first volume of the Humayma Excavation Reports constitutes an important addition of high quality to the research of Nabataean cultural landscape outside Petra, covering important groundwork for future work on this subject in this region." -- Anne Lykke, Review of Biblical Literature, 05/2014
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