Thursday,
March 26, 2015 at 6pm in the John B.
Davis Lecture Hall in the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center at Macalester
College
Petra, the capital of ancient kingdom of Nabataea during the
2nd century BCE - early 2nd century CE, is located in
southern Jordan, approximately 80 kilometers south of the Dead Sea. During this time, the Nabataeans used their
well-known ability to harness the scarce water resources of the local desert
and in some cases, make this desert bloom.
In more recent times, it has been named one of the New Seven Wonders of
the World. The Petra Garden and Pool
Complex (PGPC) is a major monument in the heart of Petra that has only recently
come to light. As the only known example
of a Nabataean garden, and one of very few excavated ancient gardens in the
Middle East, the PGPC offers a rare opportunity to explore Nabataean garden
traditions within the context of the Hellenistic-Roman Near East. As such, it is making a significant impact on
our understanding of the city center, much of which is turning out to be
markedly different in appearance and function than what was imagined by
previous scholars.
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| Visual reconstruction of the Petra Garden and Pool Complex (Chrys Kanellopoulos) https://petragardenexcavation.wordpress.com/project-history-2/ |
About
the Speaker: James G. Schryver, Ph.D. (2005) in Medieval Studies,
Cornell University, is Associate Professor of Art History at the
University of Minnesota, Morris. His own work and publications on the
medieval Mediterranean world focus on the archaeology of Frankish
Cyprus. Professor has received many honors and awards and authored
numerous articles and book chapters, including editing the volume
Studies in the Archaeology of the Medieval Mediterranean, Brill Press
(September, 2010). His Curriculum Vitae can be found here.
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