Direction
Jérôme Rohmer (CNRS, UMR 7041 ArScAn)
Ahmad al-Jallad (Leiden University, Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Arabia)
Mahmood al-Hajiri (Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage)
How Eveha Participates
Archaeological excavations
Location
Saudi Arabia
Zone 2
Zone 2 corresponds to the southeast gate of the city walls. It was identified in aerial photographs in 2016 and excavated on a large scale in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
This gate features an impressive defensive system projecting outwards
and inwards, with three major architectural phases (Fig. 1).
The first phase comprises a succession of three 2.3-meter-wide gates (triple-pronged gate). At present, only the first two gates have been excavated, protected by two massive 15-meter-long towers projecting outward.
In the second phase, the entrance gate was blocked and the wall was reinforced by a 3.5-meter-wide outer wall, while the eastern tower
was razed. In the third phase, the wall thickness reached 10 meters thanks to the addition of a new 2.5-meter-wide outer wall.
In 2021, the objectives of the excavation were to recover the complete stratigraphic sequence of the gate, down to the bedrock, to carry out some spot checks on the outer defensive system, and to identify the inner passageway. To this end, four shallow test pits were opened and one deep test pit was completed. Test pit 10 is located southwest of the gate, between the city wall, the west tower of phase 3, and the east tower of the gate (fig. 2). Beneath the foundation of the east tower (M. 153), the remains of an occupation phase prior to the city walls were discovered. This is a building housing a forge, which directly succeeded an earlier building whose function remains undetermined. To the northwest, trench 15 was opened, measuring 4 x 4 m and 1.2 m deep. This trench revealed the northwest boundary of the inner gate passage. This consists of the north jamb of the third gate (M.223) and a wall parallel to the rampart (M. 513) which marks the northern boundary of the passageway. The latter has been recovered, at least in its upper part (recovery trench 542). To the northeast of the gate, test pit 16 measures 4.4 m by 3.3 m. The excavation did not exceed 0.4 m in depth. It revealed a masonry structure measuring 3.7 m long by 2.5 m wide, belonging to the rampart gate. This structure probably marks the eastern boundary of the gate’s inner passageway. In the southern part of Area 2, a berm located between trenches 13 and 14 (2019 season) was excavated to uncover two small square masonry structures (Nos. 356 and 357), attached to the southern facing of the eastern tower, as well as a later wall (No. 552) extending southward (test pit 17). Massifs 356 and 357 are part of a repair to the main structure of the gate and may correspond to the buttresses of the eastern tower.
