Jordan Journal Volume 14, No 4, 2020: Special Issue
For History and Archaeology Third International Conference on Petra and Nabataean Culture
- 1 -
© 2020 DSR Publishers/The University of Jordan. All Rights Reserved.
Production in the hinterland of Petra:
winepresses as a case study
Fawzi Q. Abudanah
1
, Ahmad Z. Hasanat
2
Abstract
This paper discusses production in the hinterland of Petra through the
archaeological evidence of winepresses. Several winepresses were recorded in
the hinterland of Petra during the study of ancient roads. The paper presents a
description of the presses, their typology, and their geographic and topographic
locations. The discussion also deals with other issues such as the date of the
presses, the contribution of the hinterland of Petra to its economy, and the type
of sites with which the presses are associated.
Keywords: Winepresses. Petra. Nabataean. Hinterland. Wine.
The Geographic and Topographic Locations
The wine presses under discussion in this paper extend geographically northward
from Malghan area northeast Petra to almost the Ras Naqeb escarpment southward
in southern Jordan (Fig. 01). They were noticed and recorded during the study of
the ancient road networks in the hinterland of Petra initiated by the author in 2011
and 2014. Topographically, they are located within the mountainous terrain of Jebal
al-Sharah with an elevation not less than 1400m above sea level. Although the area
is high and mountainous the founders of the presses built them on almost flat terrains
except in one case (WP 09). All of the wine presses presented in this paper are
associated with settlement sites, farmsteads and hamlets mainly. The masonry, in
general, is similar to the masonry of the settlement sites in terms of the architectural
techniques and the type of stones.
1
Corresponding author: email, fawziabudanh@yahoo.co.uk, (Abudanah, Fawzi Q). Orcid number:
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2556-3155, Department of Archaeology, Petra College for Tourism and Archaeology,
Al-Hussein Bin Talal University, Jordan.
2
Second Author: email, vianovatrajan@gmail.com, (Hasanat, Ahmad Z.) Orcid number: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-
5882-0736, King Abdullah University for Sciences and Technology, KSA, Saudi Arabia
Received on 6/9/2020 and accepted for publication on 24/11/2020.