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AMMAN — The eastern area of the Jordan Valley is dissected by numerous wadis, which flow from the Transjordanian highlands into the valley, one of which is the Wadi Shuaib.
The Wadi Shuaib constitutes one of the major routes connecting the southern part of the Jordan Valley with the central Jordanian highlands in the region of as-Salt, and continuing towards Amman in the southeast and the Baqah Valley in the northeast.
While the upper reaches of the Wadi Shuaib, including adjacent tributary wadis such as the Wadi Al Kafrat and Wadi Al Azraq, features fertile soils watered by the perennial waters of the wadi and abundant annual rainfalls, the southern part of the wadi’s course consists of arid lands until it finally merges and junctures with the Jordan River.
"The wadi carries large amounts of water, being fed by several natural springs in the vicinity of as-Salt in the north as well as the annual rainfall from the Transjordanian highlands, and provides enough water throughout the year,” said Alexander Ahrens, a German archaeologist.
In several parts of the wadi, flat areas next to the wadi bed therefore allow for intensive cultivation, Ahrens added.
The wadi encompasses three natural environmental zones: The Mediterranean woodlands in the north, the foothill steppe, and the riparian forest associated with the wadi bed and springs.
"Based on current evidence, agricultural practices in these areas did not include large-scale terracing, but were rather focused on the exploitation of moderate topographic niches as well as soil pockets between lapis [deeply grooved, jagged, and rugged rock surfaces formed by water erosion]," Ahrens said.
He noted that the alluvial fan of the Wadi Shuaib in the southern part of the eastern Jordan Valley represents the end of the wadi.
The Jordan Valley receives rain only during the months from October to May, while the north receives ca. 380 millimetres of rainfall a year, the southern part receives only half of this and thus must be considered a semi-arid desert environment, the archaeologist said.
"It is surprising that hitherto only few archaeological investigations were conducted in the region, which almost totally focused on the regions near as-Salt or the Jordan Valley, but never on the Wadi Shuaib itself.”
“Albright collected material of archaeological sites on various visits to the Jordan Valley, including the region immediately north of the Dead Sea,” Ahrens said.
A famous US archaeologist Nelson Glueck surveyed several sites at the southernmost point of the Wadi Shuaib, i.e. at the juncture of the wadi with the Jordan Valley, during his extensive surveys in the years 1939–1947, the wadi here referred to as “Wadi Nimrin”.
The site of Tell Nimrin, located within the town of South Shuna, was excavated in the years 1989–1995, located at the southern end of the wadiʼs alluvial fan, within the limits of the modern town South Shuna.
"In the years 1998 and 2000, Ji and Lee surveyed parts of the wadi at its juncture with the Jordan Valley as part of their survey of the region of Iraq Al Amir and the Wadi Kafrayn again. The area immediately south of as-Salt was preliminarily surveyed by de Vaux in 1937," Ahren said.
"The Wadi Shuaib Archaeological Survey Project was therefore initiated in 2016 in order to document all archaeological remains in the wadi system, dating from the earliest periods attested until the Ottoman period, from south of as-Salt until the Jordan Valley," Ahren added.
