Bayir site reveals Roman military presence through Latin inscriptions

AMMAN — The Roman army at its peak reached the north-western parts of modern day Saudi Arabia.

The area between the Roman territory and Sassanian Kingdom was called Limes Arabicus and the legions not only fought long and exhausting wars with the formidable enemy on the east, but also protected its cities from Bedouin raids.

The site of Bayir is located in the south-eastern part of Jordan, on the halfway between Azraq and Maan. The site is located on the limestone eastern edge of the Jordanian plateau crossed by dry valleys that run towards Wadi Sirḥan,

The site is still in need of excavations. Before 1918, some European travellers, including Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, Douglas Carruthers, Alois Musil and Gertrude Bell, stopped at Bayir and noticed the wells and the ruins of a “castle”.

"These wells are very important for watering the animals of nomad herders circulating in the region. During the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire in 1917, all four wells at the site were dynamited by the Turks, said Professor Pierre‐Louis Gatier from NRS‐Université Lumière Lyon.

“But the reactivation of two of them allowed the Arab insurgents and the famous T. E. Lawrence to use Bayir as a base for military operations," Gatier added.

During the British Mandate, a first archaeological survey was led by Henry Field in 1927 and 1928, devoted to prehistoric flints. In 1932, Nelson Glueck and George and Agnes Horsfield were the first to take an interest in examining the numerous pottery sherds of Bayir, Gatier continued.

The professor added that between 1928 and 1932, the remains of the castle were destroyed, and a fort was built for the Arab Legion with their stones on a nearby hill. The 1981 survey led by Scott Rolston and Gary Rollefson resulted in the collection of pottery sherds and in the first study of ANA graffiti by Vincent Clark.

The castle was built over several periods and was badly destroyed in 1932.

Gatier spent years studying Latin and Greek inscriptions in Jordan and for this work he teamed up with Jordanian Professor Hani Hayajneh from Yarmouk University in Irbid.

"We study here the four Latin graffiti that form part of the Yarmouk University collection. Two of them are unpublished and could have been erroneously classified as Greek. In contrast, there do not appear to be any Greek texts in this collection," Hayajneh said.

There are four Latin graffiti found at Bayir, on the first one is written:

"In the honour of this Lucius Attillius …, a man called Sabinus—either cognomen of a Roman citizen or simple name [nomen unicum]—made the dedication," Gatier said.

The professor added that Greek and Latin graffiti most often contain names in the nominative Latin form, so this graffito is original in honouring an individual whose name is in the dative Latin form.

It may be an officer celebrated by one or several soldiers. Sabinus, a Latin anthroponym, is an extremely common name throughout the near East and particularly in the province of Arabia, perhaps because of its assonance with Semitic names such as Zebinas, Hayajneh explained.

He added that in Provincia Arabia where a Graeco‐Macedonian calendar was commonly used, the choice of the Roman calendar is typical of the army.

The presence of Greek and Latin graffiti at Bayir can be explained, as in other places, by the abundance of older graffiti in other languages, Hayajneh elaborated, noting that the newcomers have simply added their names or a brief honorific formula to the many others that preceded them.

"Since the Latin graffiti of the steppe and desert are always produced by soldiers of the Roman army, we can assume that at Bāyir, as elsewhere, the four Latin texts bear witness to the presence of soldiers, probably horsemen from an auxiliary unit. The situation with Greek is more complex, and many of the Greek graffiti of the desert were not drawn by soldiers," Hayajneh underlined.