Abstract
One of the most fascinating and enigmatic pieces of evidence of Nabataean ingenuity is the so-called Zodiac of Khirbet et-Tannur (Jordan), found in a temple built at the mountain summit close to Djebel Tannur in the first half of the second century CE, possibly when the ancient Nabataean Kingdom was already under Roman rule. However, Nabataean traditions and cults persisted during the Roman period and even survived well into Byzantine times. But one important change was the imposition of a Julian-like calendar, of Egyptian inspiration, instead of the original lunisolar calendar of the Nabataeans—earlier inherited and adapted from the Babylonian one—whose month names were however preserved under a solar perspective and a new time framework entitled Era Provincia Arabia. An analysis of the dates reported in the foundation inscriptions of the first century CE rock-carved tombs at the southern Nabataean city of Hegra, and other dated inscriptions of the Nabataean Kingdom period, has given some clues for us to look at the Tannur Zodiac with a different perspective. This new way of thinking has allowed a completely different approach to this masterpiece of art which is substantially different to most previous interpretations (see e.g. McKenzie et al., ARAM Periodical 24:379–420, 2012). According to our hypothesis, we consider that it should be formally named the ‘almanac’ or ‘parapegma’ of Khirbet et-Tannur hereafter.
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Notes
- 1.
This information has already been published in Belmonte and González-García (2017) but for the sake of clarity and completeness of the present essay we consider that it is appropriate to repeat it here.
- 2.
Although fully described in Belmonte and González-García (2017), we believe that it is worth repeating this description so that the reader can get a first-hand impression of how a Nabataean pilgrimage route would have worked in the Kingdom period, and certainly later during the Roman dominion.
- 3.
The hajj in the present day lunar Islamic calendar starts of the 10th of Dhu al-Hijja, a month that could be paralleled with Tishri before intercalation was forbidden in the Quran (9, 37).
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Acknowledgments
This work has been financed under the framework of the projects P/310793 ‘Arqueoastronomía’ of the IAC, and AYA2015-66787 ‘Orientatio ad Sidera IV’ of the Spanish MINECO.
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Aviles, J.B., González-García, A.C., Rodriguez-Antón, A. (2019). Arabia Adquisita: The Romanization of the Nabataean Cultic Calendar and the Tannur ‘Zodiac’ Paradigm. In: Magli, G., González-García, A., Belmonte Aviles, J., Antonello, E. (eds) Archaeoastronomy in the Roman World. Historical & Cultural Astronomy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97007-3_8
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