El Museo Jordano
Museo nacional de historia y cultura de Jordania. Más de 2.000 artefactos, incl. estatuas Ain Ghazal, las figuras humanas de gran escala más antiguas; tallas nabateas, rollos del Mar Muerto
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Khirbet edh-Dharih fue establecida como una villa nabatea en la ladera de una montaña sobre Wadi al-La'ban, tributario de Wadi al-Hasa en el sur de Jordania.
Un extraordinario templo con elaborada fachada tallada, que se eleva hasta 15 m de altura fue construido en la villa, alrededor del siglo I de nuestra era.
The temple facade was designed according to classical fashion. It contained major constitutional elements of classical architectural order, but its decoration was not classical at all. Excavators found the temple in ruined heaps, but fortunately they could recover hundreds of fallen stone blocks that enabled them to reconstruct major parts of the temple.
The architrave of the temple facade stood around 10 m above ground. It was decorated with carved vines and animals, and had Medusa heads at the corners. The frieze above had figures of the Zodiac alternating with winged Victories, who crowned these figures. The discovered zodiac figures are, from left to right, Taurus, Gemini (figured as Dioscuri), Cancer, Libra and a fragment of a cuirassed Sagittarius; the others are very damaged or missing.
At the top, a triangular pediment had sea centaurs (Tritons) with long twisted tails, crowned by flying Victories and fishes at the ends. Standing eagles guarded the central figures, which were certainly the most important for the temple. Only fragments remain to indicate what these were: a section of the head of a bearded deity (possibly Hadad / Dushara) and fine cornucopiae that suggests a female deity, possibly Atargatis / al-'Uzza. These two were the main deities at the nearby Nabataean temple of Khirbat at-Tannur.
The discoveries in 1998 to 2001 generated discussions among scholars: is the zodiac depicted here a sign of an astral Nabataean cult, or does it represent the local adoption of the zodiacal calendar that was known in several contemporary cultures?
(Texto en el Museo Jordano.)
© Foto: Haupt & Binder
Museo nacional de historia y cultura de Jordania. Más de 2.000 artefactos, incl. estatuas Ain Ghazal, las figuras humanas de gran escala más antiguas; tallas nabateas, rollos del Mar Muerto