
Greek graffito in Jordan's Black Desert sheds light on early nomadic Christians
AMMAN — The eastern Basalt Desert was a home of a 'very intensive' Christian graffiti production during first three centuries AD. Syrian-Jordanian desert was the frontier between the Roman Empire and Sassanian Empire during late Roman and early Byzantine periods.
Thousands of drawings, tags, prayers, personal records and names testify about this activity in a desolated place and scholars try to reconstruct the life of ancient tribes by studying the meaning of this graffiti.
These graffiti are the work of nomadic pastoralist who inhabited the Black Desert and are a point of research for international and Jordanian archaeological teams.
Compared to Safaitic inscriptions, graffiti in ancient Greek are rare. One of the Greek graffito was found in 2010 with the corpus of Safaitic inscriptions by Jordanian independent historian and researcher Rafe Harahsheh.
The location of the graffito is 35 kilometres east of Azraq, deep into the desert.
It is hardly surprising that, in addition to prehistoric sites and graffiti, many of more recent drawings and texts have been spotted in the area, said Professor Hani Hayajneh from Yarmouk University.
The professor added that the first batch of the Safaitic inscriptions was discovered by Captain Lionel Rees, a British pilot and World War I ace, in 1920s. Later, the American researcher Piere Bikai, a former director of American Centre of Research in Amman presented in 2009 30 Safaitic documents, chosen from the set of 125 texts inscribed on 77 stones.
'In 2010, an epigraphic survey of the basaltic hills and valley east of Qa Al Muqalla was carried out by Harahsheh while he worked for the Department of Antiquities of Jordan: a large number of Safaitic and Greek, Nabataean, early Islamic and Mamluk inscriptions was documented," Hayajneh said.
An edition of the new Greek inscription is intended as a supplement to all these fieldwork, Hayajneh noted.
The text is incised on a basalt pebble left in its row state approximately 40 centimetres high, 50cm wide and 20cm thick. The handwriting is influenced by cursive script.
Remarkably, the author of the inscription began to the first word of the text before realising that there was not enough space and starting again further down, the professor said, adding that the translation of the inscription states- Remember Toulos, son of Ietouros, who wrote this.
This graffito is one of records that documents a person or a prolonged stay in one place.
'Although it's quite common, it should be noted, however, that there is a mixture of two types of wording to emphasise that the mentioned person was both the one who wished to be commemorated and the one who actually engraved the text,' Hayajneh underscored.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Ammon
09-07-2025
- Ammon
Jordanian universities pay money for rankings, integrity index is poor: Minister says
Ammon News - Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Azmi Mahafzah on Wednesday expressed his dissatisfaction with the ranking of all Jordanian universities in the recently released Research Integrity Index, which revealed the theft and falsification of scientific research and the reliance on artificial intelligence applications. In remarks to "Ammon News," Mahafzah said that combating forgery and theft of research is extremely important, and Jordanian universities must monitor, anticipate, and combat it, as it will dent the reputation of Jordanian universities, even if it benefits them in other rankings. The primary objective of falsifying, stealing, and publishing scientific research is to benefit from rankings, as this practice began first in private universities and then spread to public universities, which seek to improve their rankings and thus destroy the reputation of the rankings, Mahafzah stated. Mahafzah explained that classification should be based on improving quality first, not on falsifying research and citations. In addition, Mahafzah revealed that some Jordanian universities pay money and advertising to participate in conferences and improve their rankings, effectively turning their work into public relations, indicating that they also pay researchers to publish under the university's name through honorary appointments, honorary titles, and other titles, so that their research is credited to the university. All Jordanian public universities are not in a good classification on the Research Integrity Index, as most of our universities were classified as Red Flag, which indicates a very bad situation, two were classified as orange, indicating a High Risk, and another as yellow, indicating a Watch List, while no university was classified as green, which indicates a Normal Variation, or white, which indicates Low Risk, the Minister said. The Minister indicated that universities themselves must monitor the behavior of their faculty members, as this is a matter that concerns not only the universities but also Jordan and its reputation, at the same time, the reputation of higher education and scientific research in Jordan would be affected by the results of this research ranking.


Jordan News
08-07-2025
- Jordan News
A 140-Million-Year-Old Scorpion was discovered in Jordanian Amber - Jordan News
A 140-Million-Year-Old Scorpion was discovered in Jordanian Amber Scientist Abbas Haddadin discovered a 140-million-year-old scorpion in Jordanian amber. In another fragment, he discovered a scorpion's stinger of the same age. Scorpions were among the first animals to live on Earth 337 million years ago. اضافة اعلان The scorpion that was found in Jordanian amber is the oldest scorpion in the world, as its presence in Jordanian amber has been documented since that date. The discovery of the scorpion in Jordanian amber provides valuable information about the evolution of scorpions and their geological history. The first picture shows the Jordanian scorpion in amber, and the second picture shows the scorpion's stinger in amber containing the poison [email protected]

Ammon
06-07-2025
- Ammon
Scientists unravel 2,000-year-old Roman aqueduct mystery
Ammon News - Researchers from Mainz, Oxford, and Innsbruck have used carbonate fragments to unravel the complex history of the Arles aqueduct system. A team of researchers from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), the University of Oxford, and the University of Innsbruck has reconstructed the intricate history of the ancient aqueduct system in Arles, located in Provence. Their analysis focused on aqueduct carbonates—limescale deposits—that had built up over time in channels, basins, and lead pipes, as well as on fragments of carbonate used as construction material in the roof of the Baths of Constantine. The results of their study were published on June 28, 2025, in the scientific journal Geoarchaeology. Carbonates for the Complete Picture 'This study provides a clear example of how a Roman aqueduct functioned over several centuries, undergoing multiple phases of transformation, maintenance, and adaptation by Roman engineers. It stands out as one of the best-documented cases of sustainable water management in the ancient world,' explained Dr. Gül Sürmelihindi from the Institute of Geosciences at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), who led the research. 'Unlike previous studies that focused on individual aqueducts, we examined the entire water supply network of ancient Arles, which included several aqueducts, a shared basin, and interconnected urban water structures,' added Professor Dr. Cees Passchier, also from the Institute of Geosciences at JGU, who collaborated on the study. Carbonates for the Complete Picture 'This study provides a clear example of how a Roman aqueduct functioned over several centuries, undergoing multiple phases of transformation, maintenance, and adaptation by Roman engineers. It stands out as one of the best-documented cases of sustainable water management in the ancient world,' explained Dr. Gül Sürmelihindi from the Institute of Geosciences at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), who led the research. 'Unlike previous studies that focused on individual aqueducts, we examined the entire water supply network of ancient Arles, which included several aqueducts, a shared basin, and interconnected urban water structures,' added Professor Dr. Cees Passchier, also from the Institute of Geosciences at JGU, who collaborated on the study. 'We found carbonate deposits in the ceiling debris that matched those from the northern aqueduct,' said Sürmelihindi. 'This indicates that when the baths were constructed in the early fourth century AD under Emperor Constantine, the aqueduct was not only still in use but had likely been restored, with carbonate removed from the channels repurposed as roofing material.' SciTechDaily