A Diachronic Analysis of Orientation of Sacred Precints Across Jordan

Located in the southern part of the Levant, the territory of present day Jordan functioned as a cultural crossroad

since times immemorial. The state of preservation of the different remains and the quantity of the different

stages makes Jordan a perfect area to perform a study on the evolution along time of the orientation

customs. During our field campaign in December 2011, we collected data on a number of different cultic

structures throughout the country, from Bronze Age temples, to megalithic monuments, Iron Age Nabataean

monuments, Roman and Hellenistic cities and temples and Byzantine churches with a small number of Muslim

mosques. This sample of over 300 structures of different periods allows a diachronic comparison of the

orientation of cultic buildings for the last 5000 years in this area of the Levant. We find a consistency to orientate

the cultic structures in accordance to similar areas of the horizon. This similarity is striking when

comparing the megalithic monuments found along the whole country with the Nabataean monuments of

nearly 2000 years later. This consistency appears despite the chronological gap, the cultural differences and

also possibly the different ethnic components of these societies. The consistency seems to be broken after the

Roman conquest, especially with the introduction of Christianity and definitely after the expansion of Islam.

A comparison with other neighboring areas of the Near East is sketched in order to compare with contemporary

monuments for each epoch.

Bronze Age Jordan. Iron Age Jordan. Nabataeans. Diachronic analysis. Temporality.