By Taylor Luck

HALLABAT - Recent findings from a castle 60 kilometres away from the capital reveal new historical information changing the way people view the evolution of the Arab identity and the entire region, experts say.

Qasr Al Hallabat, one of the Kingdom’s so-called desert castles, a series of fortresses built by the Romans around the 2nd century to cement their presence in the Levant, is much more than the average castle, according to archaeologist and Spanish aid specialist Ignacio Arce.

Arce, who has been working at the site since 2002, said the castle provides a missing link between the end of the Roman Empire’s influence in the region and the Umayyad civilisation, a 100-year gap that has previously been left unaddressed.

“Most people who focus on classical archaeology only work up to the 6th century, at the decline of the Byzantine empire. Others focus on Islamic architecture and archaeology, and start with the Umayyads. There is a whole period of history that has not been examined closely,” he noted.

Arce was puzzled when he found evidence of restoration work on the mosaics within the Umayyad period, to which historians attribute the renovation of the palace and the laying down of new floors.

“I kept asking myself: ‘Why would the Umayyads restore their own mosaics?’ And then it hit me, because it wasn’t theirs in the first place,” Arce said.

As his team’s restorations went further, it became clearer that the Roman fortress was expanded into a much larger structure before the arrival of the Umayyads.

Revealing a palatial structure with limited military use in addition to a portico and a second storey, they discovered that the fortress was built beyond its previously believed dimensions.

“We kept asking: Who the heck could have built a palace in the desert in the 6th century? And then it became clear. The Ghassanids.”

The Ghassanids, a group of monotheistic tribes originating from Yemen that played a prominent role in the region, had become de facto rulers of the region and established an Arab identity in the Eastern Badia and the Levant, Arce said.

For centuries, urban populations in what is now Jordan depended on the semi-nomads for protection of their caravans while the bedouins, in turn, required such work from the merchant class - a symbiosis that was disturbed forever by the arrival of the Persians.

At the turn of the 6th century, Persians pushed the Byzantine rulers out of the Levant, and after the eastern Roman Empire regained the territory, they shifted their support from urban populations and began to rely on semi-nomadic bedouins to protect the frontier of their empire.

Unlike citizens living in cities such as Gerasa, Salt and Amman, who considered themselves Roman citizens, the new bedouin Ghassanid rulers had a completely different identity: Arabs.

“They were Arabs and very proud of being Arabs,” he noted.

Instead of being on the fringes of society, Arab tribes were placed at the epicentre of power. Roman fortresses were converted into palaces to display wealth and receive local tribes to maintain favour in the area.

Free to control the Eastern Badia, the Christian tribes also established churches and monasteries.

While renovating the qasr complex, Arce and his team discovered a presbytery, and later the pulpit and altar of a chapel within the compound, complete with mosaics depicting Christian motifs, further supporting his theory.

While one door was of normal height for priests to enter the chapel, the entry for the general public was shorter, forcing each visitor, no matter how powerful, to bow down before entering the place of worship.

Further work revealed a series of crosses carved into various doorways and arches and a wine press, leading credence to the theory that the Ghassanids were tenants of the castle.

An earthquake shook the area in the mid-6th century, and caused most of Qasr Al Hallabat’s walls to crumble. The outer walls were rebuilt with stones made of black basalt, some of which are inscribed with an imperial edict governing the land. The act of defacing an imperial edict, which would have been punishable for Roman citizens, led many to believe that the castle was rebuilt by the Umayyads. Not so, according to Arce.

“People are thinking too much as archaeologists and were overlooking practicality. When an earthquake happens, the priority is to rebuild, and here was a bountiful supply of stones,” he said, noting that as the Ghassanids did not consider themselves citizens under the Byzantines, they would have had no qualms about using the stones.

With the arrival of the Umayyads in the mid- to late-7th century, their contribution to the main structure was minimal, he said, as the new inhabitants refurbished the mosaics and installed elaborate stucco finishing and mural paintings, “changing the decorations”.

Part of the chapel was filled with cement and the monastery was converted into storerooms and offices.

The most important addition to the site in the Umayyad era is the mosque. An external structure adjacent to the site, Arce and his team over the last few years have painstakingly pieced the structure together, restoring its former beauty for all to see, including a portico and archway entrances.

According to Arce, the qasr serves as a perfect base for exploring the black gem of the eastern desert, Um Al Jimel, some 20km away, or a physical and historical starting point for an excursion to the desert castles.

Teams are now refurbishing a museum, visitor’s centre and cafe at the site, in order for the local community to benefit from its most ancient treasure and so that Qasr Al Hallabat can once again become a meeting point for civilisations.

The museum, which will feature a bust of Hermes, intricate restored Corinthian capitals, and brightly coloured mosaics from the Ghassanid and Umayyad periods, will be devoted to the historical evolution of the region and the emergence of Arab identity.

Already, the renovated site is beginning to receive tour buses; the Kingdom’s archaeological "missing link" will no longer be a hidden gem.

“It won’t take long before people learn that this was a spot which defined the region,” Arce said.