Overview

Bibliography

Birketein, which means “double pool” in Arabic, lies a short distance north of Jerash (ancient Gerasa). Its main feature is a large double reservoir measuring 43.5 by 88.5 meters and about 3 meters deep. It was built in the Late Roman Period (Third Century CE) over a spring to store water that was used to irrigate nearby fields and to supply water via an aqueduct for the nymphaeum, the west bath, the macellum, and other fountains in Jerash. Although its water storage capacity was essential, the site also developed as setting for celebrating the little-known annual Maiumas festival. This appears to have been an aquatic festival with various forms of entertainment associated with nudity and licentious behavior, leading to it being sporadically banned. In association with the festival, a colonnaded processional way was built from the north gate of Jerash, along the west side of the double reservoir, and past the tomb of Germanus, about 100 meters north of the reservoir. Other tombs were built along the processional way, which is no longer visible at the site.

West and above the reservoir, a small festal theater was built to give spectators a view of the activities taking place in the pools. The theater has not survived well. Only the seats of the cavea built into the side of the hill have survived. All the seats above the hill have been lost. Only the stage foundations have survived; there is no evidence of the scaenae frons. Perhaps the theater was open towards the pool so as not to obscure the view of the spectators. Next to the theater, a bath was built, though it has only recently been exposed.

Birketein has largely been neglected. It was surveyed by Schumacher around the turn of the last century, and the theater was studied by an Anglo-American team in the 1930s. From 2005 to 2007, the Department of Antiquities of Jordan had carried out an excavation of a bath complex immediate south of the theater. The principal investigator of the bath has been Clarisse Lachat. The preservation of the entire complex is now being planned by Jordan’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.