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Daajania: Satellite image of Roman fort with plan



Daajania: satellite image of fort with plan (Google Images; Kennedy and Riley 1990 fig.119.)

The Roman fort at Daajania is located on the edge of the desert in southern Jordan, 40 km northeast of Petra, and 32 km from the fortress at Udruh. The fort's coordinates are N 30.552682, E 35.761828.

The fort is relatively large, about 100 x100 meters in area, with massive walls built of basalt blocks. There are large square towers at each corner with smaller square towers between them.

Barracks filled the center of the fort.  The short blocks of barrack rooms (A in plan) are similar to those at the fort at Lejjun.  Rooms built against the outside walls (B in plan) appear to have been stables. Based on these identifications, the fort could have housed about 300 men, i.e. three centuries of infantry and two turmae of horsemen (Kennedy and Riley 1990, p.173).

Dating of the fort is still problematic as no excavations have yet been done, no inscriptions are known, and the site is not identified with any in the Notitia Dignitatum. Surface collections revealed a wide chronological range of Roman pottery, and a coin of AD 308–10 (Parker, 1986). Kennedy and Riley (1990, pp. 173-4) find a late 3rd/early 4th century date most probable for the fort, which would accord with a similar internal layout of the early 4th century castellum at Umm el-Jemal.

[Source: Kennedy and Riley 1990, Rome's Desert Frontier from the Air.] 


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