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The Karak Plateau in the Early Islamic
Period:
 The
other important resource available for the study of the Early
Islamic period is the archaeological record. The region has been
the subject of field surveys and excavations [link to:
archaeological techniques sections]. In addition, we are able to
compare the ceramics and other finds from these studies with
dated material from excavations conducted in northern Jordan,
Israel and Syria. One important body of information is
architectural inscriptions. Inscriptions in Greek discovered on
the Karak plateau have provided evidence that the Christian
communities of the region were still flourishing after the
Muslim conquest. One from the town of al-Rabba records a
construction by the metropolitan (i.e. bishop) Stephen in 687,
and we know from other sources that bishops were appointed to
the town until 1168. The majority of the rural population
probably continued to be Christian until at least the thirteenth
century. Crusader chronicles record that at the beginning of the
twelfth century Arab Christians from the Karak plateau were
brought by the Crusader king to repopulate parts of Jerusalem
and surrounding areas. Other early inscriptions such as a
gravestone now in the Karak castle museum show the introduction
of Arabic into Jordan in the Early Islamic period.
Archaeological surveys have also been used to look at the
fluctuations in settlement over the plateau through time. In
particular, this has been done by analysing the pottery found on
the urban and rural sites in the region. By dating the pottery
collected on a site it is possible to establish the periods
during which it was occupied. Clearly, this technique relies
upon accurate dating of the pottery sherds recovered on the
surveys. It should be noted, however, that our understanding of
the types of pottery used in Jordan during the Early Islamic
period is limited and it may be that much of the pottery
identified as Byzantine may, in fact, come from the Early
Islamic period. The overall picture is still difficult to
interpret, but it appears that the last two centuries of
Byzantine rule saw a massive expansion in the number of villages
on the Karak plateau. This peak of occupation was not sustained
after the Muslim conquest and there seems to have been a steady
decline in the numbers of occupied villages through to a low
point from the ninth to the eleventh century. It was only from
the twelfth century that the rural population increased
significantly. |
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