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AMMAN – Located in south-western Jordan, Sela is also characterised by a hundred of cisterns, water reservoirs, both perforated or carved into the sandstone, presumably filled with rainwater through surface channels incised in the rock.
“These cisterns are exceptional for their variety; some of them are carved into the sandstone in the ground, and others are cut into the standing sandstone boulders,” Spanish archaeologist Rocío Da Riva from the University of Barcelona said.
The shapes and sizes vary, as does the level of sophistication: Some are technologically complex, with settling or sedimentation basins for stopping sediment and for separating mud and sand before the water was allowed into the main cisterns slab of stone to close them.
These additions would have helped to improve the quality of the water, lengthen the potential storage time, and reduce the loss of water through evaporation.
"It is plausible to think that the structures were reused over time, and that mortars were added during different periods of use; so a cistern may have been manufactured in one particular period, but the mortar currently present in it may be more recent," Da Riva underlined.
The archaeologist noted that the variability in size and morphology of the cisterns may respond to chronological differences.
"We assume that different artisans in different periods used different technologies and elements to manufacture the cisterns and their mortars, which implies that the system was used in more than one period.”
“However, we did not attempt to establish an accurate and definitive typology of the structures because of the difficulty in obtaining a 14C-dating and the lack of independent archaeological evidence," she said.
Most of these cisterns are now filled with debris and sediment, so there is no way of dating or analysing them without undertaking an archaeological excavation. In some of them a preliminary inspection was performed using a Kong Cevedale tripod.
In addition to the cisterns, a series of rock-cut channels and pipelines were detected in different areas of the site. Some of the channels are more than 20 m in length, and they seem to have been used to funnel the water into the cisterns, Da Riva said.
The archaeologist added that all these elements suggest the existence of an extremely sophisticated and well-developed system for harvesting and storing rainwater using water channels, pipes, pools, and underground cisterns.
This area presents two large rock-cut structures, one of which at least seems to have functioned as a sanctuary: There is an altar and a sort of sacrificial pile or baytilos.
"The central area K is the largest at the site; here, we found numerous cisterns, rock-cut houses and also a canal. Surface finds [pottery, stone and metal objects] coincide with those of other areas of the site. In this western part, we found a tower and some rock-cut structures, including houses and cisterns.”
“We also detected a limestone outcrop, which was probably the quarry for the plaster used for the walls and floors of the cisterns and the houses," Da Riva explained, adding that near the limestone outcrop, the team found iron slags and some fragments of basalt objects.
Da Riva elaborated: "The many structures for water storage and management, as well as the dwellings and fortifications, make it a unique site for studying the economic and social relevance of water management on the Edomite Plateau.”
“We can now affirm that as-Sila was indeed occupied during the Late Iron Age, in the Nabataean and Roman periods, and also in Mamluk and Ottoman periods [12th–18th centuries AD]," the archaeologist noted.