Dissertation Research: Petra Lower Market Survey

在Bruce Routledge博士的指导下，MS Leigh-Ann Bedal将为她的博士论文收集数据。她的工作重点是位于约旦死海以南约80公里处的佩特拉考古遗址。文献证据表明，佩特拉是纳巴泰王国的首都，其令人印象深刻的岩石凿成的建筑和雕刻在砂岩悬崖上的巨大坟墓外墙是众所周知的。然而，人们对该遗址的功能以及它位于贫瘠沙漠地区的原因知之甚少。根据本世纪初的挖掘，人们假设大型开放空间是市场，该遗址在长途贸易中发挥了重要作用。然而，正如Bedal女士所指出的那样，这些区域的功能实际上是什么，这是非常不确定的，而这项研究的目标就是解决这个问题。在一个野外季节的过程中，MS Bedal将对“低市场”区域进行调查。她将仔细绘制所有现存建筑特征的地图，并收集表面材料。然后，她将在选定的地区进行试验挖掘。这项工程将使人们对一个重要的史前遗址有新的认识。在罗马征服之前的这一时期，近东的大部分地区被组织成帝国，考古学家希望了解这些单位的功能，以及促进分布在广泛地理区域的不同种族和语言群体整合为大规模功能政治单位的力量。许多研究人员认为，长距离贸易的组织和控制允许了必要的权力集中，而纳巴泰王国提供了一个评估这一假设的场所。这项研究将产生许多考古学家感兴趣的数据，并有助于培养一位有前途的年轻科学家。

Under the direction of Dr. Bruce Routledge, MS Leigh-Ann Bedal will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. Her work focuses on the archaeological site of Petra which is located in Jordan, ca 80 kilometers South of the Dead Sea. Documentary evidence indicates that Petra was capitol of the Nabataean kingdom and its impressive rock hewn buildings and monumental tomb facades carved into sandstone cliffs are well known. However much less is understod about the site's function or the reason for its location in a barren desert region. Based on excvavations in the early part of this century, it was hypothesized that large open spaces served as markets and that the site played an important role in long distance trade. As Ms Bedal notes however, it is extremely uncertain what functions these areas in fact were and the goal of this research is to address this issue. Over the course of one field season MS Bedal will conduct a survey of the "Lower Market" area. She will construct a careful map of all standing architectural features and collect surface materials. She will then conduct test excavations in selected areas. The project will shed new light on an important prehistoric site. In this period which preceeded Roman conquest, much of the Near East was organized into empires and archaeologists wish to understand the functions which such units served and the forces which facilitated the integration of diverse ethnic and linguistic groups spread over exgtensive geographic areas into large-scale functioning political units. Many researchers believe that organization of and control over long distance trade permitted the necessary centralization of power and the Nabataean kingdom provides a venue to evaluate this hypothesis. The research will produce data of interest to many archaeologists and assist in training a promising young scientist.