Al-Muwaqqar Explained

Official Name:Al-Muwaqqar
Native Name:الموقر
Settlement Type:District
Subdivision Type:Country
Subdivision Name: Jordan
Subdivision Type1:Governorate
Subdivision Name1:Amman Governorate
Timezone:UTC + 2
Coordinates:31.8156°N 36.0942°W

Al-Muwaqqar (Arabic: الموقر) is a district in the Amman Governorate of north-western Jordan.[1] The village contains the scant ruins of an Umayyad palace, the Qasr al-Muwaqqar, one of the desert castles. Little remains of the palace today except several acanthus leaf capitals and gauge of a water reservoir.[2]

The district is the headquarters of the 3rd Armored Division and a police training center. Most of the families which are staying in the region are from Bani Sakhr, like Al-Khraisha, Al-Arabid, Al-Jbour, Al-Qudahh.

Archaeology: Qasr al-Muwaqqar

The village of contains the ruins of an Umayyad complex, the Qasr al-Muwaqqar, a qasr-type fortified palace also known as a desert castle. Almost nothing remains of the palace today except several acanthus-leaf capitals and[2] a water level gauge for a palace cistern, inscribed with Kufic signs which indicate a maximum level of over thirty feet (c. 10 metres), very impressive for the arid climate of the area.[3]

Two distinct qusur, Muwaqqar and Mushash

Despite some name confusion, which combined the two names into one, the following are two distinct Umayyad sites which contain qusur (plural of qasr): al-Muwaqqar and Qasr al-Mushash.[4] They lay 19.4 km apart on the historical caravan route between Amman and Azraq via Qusayr 'Amra, on which all these localities acted as way stations.[4]

See also

References

  1. Maplandia world gazetteer
  2. http://www.atlastours.net/jordan/al_muwaqqar.html Al-Muwaqqar
  3. https://www.aramcoworld.com/CMSPages/GetAzureFile.aspx?path=~\aramcoworldsite\files\4d\4d8ee990-ea86-4d36-aee6-4f00f31e167d.pdf&hash=4d474979a4c9a956fff5f571ffa41342e7113e879ad853869835e0e2d64aab8c Jordan's Desert Castles
  4. Book: Bartl, Karin . Water management in desert regions: Early Islamic Qasr Mushash . 50-68 [see p. 63] . McPhillips . Stephen . Wordsworth . Paul D. . Landscapes of the Islamic World: Archaeology, History, and Ethnography, Part I: Hydroeconomies: managing and living with water. . University of Pennsylvania Press . 2016 . 9780812292763 . 19 July 2019.

External links