Umm el-Jimal

Bert de Vries

Many archaeological projects have targeted sites such as Tell Hesban because their modern names appear to preserve the ancient ones. That is not the case with Umm el-Jimal. There is no apparent connection between the modern name and what the place may have been called in antiquity. The mid-nineteenth century Handbook of Syria and Palestine connected the name with the biblical toponym Beth-gamul from Jer. 48:23 (Graham and Porter: 522, cited in Waddington 1870). W. H. Waddington pointed out that Beth-gamul occurs in a catalogue of towns in Moab, and concluded that the ancient name "est absolument inconnu" (1870: 485). In 1909 Brünnow rather casually identified Umm el-Jimal with Triconium on the assumption shared by Butler that its name must have been included in the list of military detachments of the Notitia Dignitatum Orientis (Brünnow 1909: 69-70). No one has supported that identification subsequently.

Not everyone has agreed, however, and recent reexaminations and new discoveries have laid the Butler hypothesis to rest. Already in 1971 Bowersock suggested that Thantia could be either Khirbet es-Samra or al-Khab without mention of the Butler hypothesis (1971: 238). Subsequent archaeological work at two sites along the via nova have brought much better understanding of the relationship between sites on the Peutinger Table and sites on the ground.

Based on their work at Khirbet es-Samra and environs, Desreumaux and Humbert have argued onvincingly that Samra is to be identified with the map's Hatita, and therefore imply that Bowersock's dilemma is solved by making the map's Thantia al-Khab on the ground (1981: 34, note 2). During David Kennedy's 1978 and 1981 examination of stretches of the via nova between Umm el-Jimal and Khirbet es-Samra, he discovered that Tughrat el-Jubb, a modern village, located on the course of the via nova at the point where it crosses the recently constructed four-lane highway to Damascus, had good ceramic evidence of Roman settlement (Kennedy, D. 1982: 152-3). In a detailed critique of Butler's arguments for a Thantia/Umm el-Jimal identification, and a clever reconciliation of milage on the Peutinger Table with milage on the ground, he argues convincingly for the identification of Tughrat el-Jubb as Thantia/Thainatha (148-54). This identification is much more convincing than Butler's because it uses the Peutinger Table without emendations, the location fits the map's mileage much more precisely, and it is on the via nova, while Umm el-Jimal is on a side road some 6 km east of it (plate 8). The Kennedy thesis was accepted by Thomas Bauzou after his own thorough survey of the northern sector of the road (Bauzou 1985: 142).

By accepting the likelihood of these alternative possibilities we may conclude that Umm el-Jimal was not Thantia. Axel Knauf has pointed out that it also could not have been Thainatha or any other place in the Notitia Dignitatum because when that document was written (A.D. 408) Umm el-Jimal was without a military unit. He arrives at this gap in military presence because the garrison mentioned on the burgus inscription of 371 (Littmann no. 233) was transferred to mobile forces after 388, and the quarters for a new garrison, the Barracks was not completed until A.D. 411 (Knauf 1984: 580). He has also concluded that it is impossible to find a name for Umm el-Jimal in Arabic sources listing places with Ghassanid buildings, though he assumes that Umm el-Jimal was a Ghassanid stronghold (585-6). Should we then conclude with him that "we do not know the ancient name of Umm el-Jimal" (581)? In reaction to Knauf's despair of a positive answer Henry MacAdam has put forth a new thesis, viz. that Umm el-Jimal could possibly be Ptolemy's Surattha, as follows (1986: 17):

He selects Umm el-Jimal rather than neighboring sites like Umm es-Surab or Sabhah because it is the only site in the area known to have a town as early as the second century when Ptolemy's map was produced (de Vries 1986: 227-41). There is always hope that future excavations at the village will bring corroborating inscriptional evidence to light. Otherwise, the actual identification of ancient Umm el-Jimal in literary sources will have to remain uncertain.

There is, of course, historical merit in knowing the ancient name. One would be able to track the history of the site according to its occurrence in literary and epigraphic texts. However, the reconciliation of the historical and archaeological data that would be necessary can also be a distraction. For now, the people of Umm el-Jimal are who they are not from references to them in texts, but from what they did as preserved in the archaeological evidence. However, even if it were definitely confirmed that the town was once called Surattha (or something else) the scarcity of documentation makes it clear that we are not dealing with a place of monumental fame and political import like Bostra, Philadelphia or Gerasa. The people of Umm el-Jimal are destined to remain rural folk from one of a number of similar communities on the fringe between the urbanized Mediterranean and the nomadic desert. But it is that very fact that makes them such interesting and significant objects of this inquiry.

The name Umm el-Jimal itself is variously interpreted as Mother/Place of Camels or Mother/Place of Beauty, according to the double meaning of the root jml. The issue cannot be solved on whether it is to be pronounced jamal, 'beauty,' or jimal, 'camels.' Although I and many others find the place pleasing and attractive, still others find it eerie and somber. Gertrude Bell's guide, for example, reacted very negatively to the place. She says of their approach to the ruins, "Now Umm el Jemal has an evil name and Gablan's [her guide] evident anxiety enhanced its sinister reputation" (Bell 1907: 70-3). Given its similarity to many other basalt ruins in the lava lands, I find it difficult to imagine that this place in particular had the reputation of "beauty" among the tribes who frequented the region in the era before Europeans like Bell and Butler began to visit. The association with camels seems much more plausible for a society in which camel herding was so prominent, and for which the reservoirs of Umm el-Jimal had a very practical attraction. Howard Butler could sense this much better than we because camel herding was still a mainstay of tribal economy then. When he and his party were camped at Hallabat during their 1909 visit, a camel herding tribe passed their camp. The concluding portion of his very colorful description makes the point (Butler 1930: 90):

There is a more restrained explanation of the name in his report on the town's architecture (Butler 1913: 150):

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bauzou, T.

Bell, G.

Bowersock, G. W.

Brünnow, R. E.

Butler, H. C.

Butler, H. C., Norris, F. A. and Stoever, E. R.

Desreumaux, A. and Humbert, J.-B.

de Vries, B.

Kennedy, D. L.

Knauf, E. A.

Littmann, E.

MacAdam, H. I.

Waddington, W. H.