Hisham's Palace, a two story Umayyad structure and an example of a Desert Castle, is the main building of the Khirbet al-Mafjar archeological site located ~3 km. north of Jericho. Originally thought to have been destroyed and abandoned after it was struck by one of the mid 8th century CE Sabbatical Year earthquakes, it is now thought to have suffered more moderate damage during that event and to have remained occupied afterwards. The final destruction and abandonment of Hisham's Palace is now thought to have occurred later.

• from Robert W. Hamilton in Stern et. al. (1993 v.3)

El-Mafjar is the current name of a group of ruins lying on the north bank of Wadi en-Nu'eima in the Jordan Valley, about 2 km (1 mi.) north of Jericho, commonly referred to as "Hisham's palace" (map reference 194.143). No ancient name is known, and the site, although proven to belong to the Umayyad period, remains unidentified in ancient literature.

• from Robert W. Hamilton in Stern et. al. (1993 v.3)

A deposit of lron Age pottery on the northern outskirts of Khirbet el-Mafjar has given rise to the conjecture that the biblical site of Gilgal was hereabouts. Columns carved with crosses, in secondary use, supporting arches in the courtyard of the site's Umayyad palace, suggest that there is a monastery from Byzantine Gilgal somewhere nearby, of which there is no other vestige.

• from Oleg Grabar in Meyers et. al. (1997)

Figures Discussion

KHIRBAT AL-MAFJAR - site located near Jericho in the Jordan Valley, where excavations carried out between 1934 and 1948 brought to light the richest and the most original of all princely establishments associated with the early Islamic dynasty of the Umayyads (661-750 CE). After 1948 additional sections of the site were cleared and a process of continuing renovation was initiated to preserve the existing ruins and to make them easier for visitors to understand. The vast majority of the finds from the site and most of the records of the excavations are kept in Jerusalem, in the former Palestine Archaeological Museum, now known as the Rockefeller Museum, where several sculpted ensembles have been reconstructed.

Khirbat al-Mafjar is also known as Qasr Hisham, because a graffito found in its ruins carries the name of that particular caliph who ruled between 724 and 744. There is in fact no valid reason to associate Khirbat al-Mafjar with Hisham and, even though a reasonable and tempting hypothesis can be made about the patron of the complex (see below), it cannot be demonstrated.

The site had been identified as a significant settlement as early as 1873 by the British surveyors of Palestine. For a while it was considered to be the biblical Gilgal and the Early Christian Galgala. In fact, its excavators first believed that they had found a Christian ecclesiastical establishment. It turned out to be an Umayyad palace that was probably never completed. Its construction seems to have been abandoned rather abruptly — either because of one of the several earthquakes that affected Palestine in the middle of the eighth century or because a patron suddenly disappeared or lost interest.

There are five parts to the establishment:

1. Two-storied square castle. Roughly 70 m to the side, the complex has a porticoed courtyard with single rooms, large halls, or apartments known in Arabic as bayts, around it (see figure 1) ; although their exact functions cannot be established, these halls clearly were meant for a diverse set of activities, a relative rarity in palaces of the same type. The entrance complex is unusually large and was decorated with a striking array of stucco sculptures, ranging from traditional geometric and vegetal designs to an unusual number of representations of personages and animals, and mural paintings, some representational, on the second floor.


2. Mosque. To the north of the castle, a small and architecturally sober mosque had a direct passage to the second floor of the living quarter.


3. Bath. A sequence of rooms — an enormous (30 X 30 m) common room covered by an extraordinary roof of vaults and domes, a small suite of bathing rooms, a large latrine, a heavily decorated small private room, and a monumental entrance — corresponds to the usual system that issued from Roman architecture. The respective sizes of the components and especially the decoration found in them are unique in three ways: by the techniques used (mosaics, paintings, and sculptures); by the subjects depicted (princes, half-clad women, animals in all sorts of guises, a most elaborate geometry, rich vegetation), even though many of the topics have not yet been properly identified; and by the styles of depiction (its models are found in the Mediterranean world as well as in Buddhist Central Asia). A small room in the northwest corner, whose exact function is unclear, is a museum of mosaic and sculpture masterpieces.


4. Forecourt. Unifying the bath, mosque, and castle as a single composition, even though they were built at different times, is a forecourt. Toward the center of the courtyard an octagonal domed pavilion stood over a small pool.


5. Walled and irrigated area. A large walled and irrigated area surrounding the complex may have been used for cultivation or for hunting.

Khirbat al-Mafjar's architectural planning is awkward in many details, but the ensemble differs from other Umayyad castles through the imagination and originality of some of its construction (vaults in the bath hall, a pavilion in the forecourt), through its elaborate and luxurious decoration, and through the technical quality of most of its decoration. One of its excavators, Robert W. Hamilton (1988), has made a most persuasive argument that the licentious, poetic, and exhilarating life of the prince-poet and short-lived caliph Walid II (assassinated in 744) fits admirably with the setting and decoration of Khirbat al-Mafjar and that he should be considered the palace's patron. Like most sites in Syria and Palestine, Khirbat al-Mafjar was reoccupied in the twelfth-thirteenth centuries, when a caravanserai was built out of its ruins.

• from Taha (2011)

The excavation at Khirbat al-Mafjar was carried out by the Department of Antiquities of Palestine for twelve seasons, between 1935 and 1948, under the direction D.C. Baramki and R.W. Hamilton³⁷.

The excavation uncovered a significant part of the palace complex, composed of a palace, a thermal bath complex, a mosque, and a monumental fountain within a perimeter wall that was never completed³⁸. The three first principal buildings were arranged along the west side of a common forecourt, with a fountain in its center. The area to the north was partially excavated and revealed a series of rooms that were identified probably as a caravanserai (Khan). The excavation reports were published in the QDAP by D.C. Baramki between 1936-1942 and his report on the pottery in 1942. The final report was never published due to the events of 1948. In 1959, R.W. Hamilton presented the architectural publication of the palace and other buildings including the bath.

A large scale excavation was carried out in the northern section of the palace area in early 1960. But unfortunately the result of this excavation was never published. A series of restorations were carried out in the palace during the Jordanian rule. During the Israeli occupation between 1967-1994 the palace was left abandoned. Rehabilitation work was resumed directly after the transfer of authorities to the Palestinian side in 1996 within the framework of the project for the conservation of Hisham's Palace. The work was carried out on the behalf of the Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage in cooperation with the UNESCO, the Studium Biblicum Frandscanum, and it was funded by the Government of Italy³⁹.

The previous excavation of the bath complex was carried out along five seasons, between 1944-1948, following the clearance of the palace and mosque. Hamilton reports that it was not until 1944 that excavations of the northOrn ruins begun⁴⁰. Following the publications of the preliminary reports of D.C. Baramki and the monumental publication of R.W. Hamilton, Khirbet el-Mafjar was a subject of intensive archaeological research from art historic perspective. The key studies includes the works by K. Creswell, O. Grabar, D. Whitcomb⁴¹, and many others. However, the incomplete nature of Khirbet el-Mafjar publications is due to the fact that only the preliminary reports were published and the final archaeological report was never published. The other inherited problem is related to the "architectural" method of excavation and the level of the stratigraphic control. However, the last 60 years yielded a great amount of comparative stratigraphic material from a large number of sites in the area.

In 1986 D. Whitcomb reanalysed virtually the ceramic stratigraphy in the palace area, based on Baramki's measurements of the find spots. He reinterpreted Baramki's data in the palace and derived the following stratigraphic sequence, with chronological divisions between four periods. Whitcomb described the pottery assemblages associated with each period, concluding a stratigraphic sequence of the corpus of pottery published by D.C. Baramki in 1942. This method has been proved to be effective in reconstructing the occupational history of Hisham's Palace, based on the preliminary results of the new excavations.

After 60 years from the last season at the site, a small scale excavation was carried out in December 2006 by the Palestinian Department of Antiquities in the northern part of the main bath.

... Following the small scale excavation in 2006 by the Department of Antiquities, work was resumed in 2010 in the area within the framework of the Palestinian-American joint Expedition under the direction of Dr. D. Whitcomb and Dr. H. Taha⁴⁸. The first season, from mid-December 2010 through mid-January 2011 succeeded in uncovering the north gate of the palace complex and began the exploration of the Umayyad town in the northern part of the site. This will lead to a more precise stratigraphic history of the site and understanding of the spatial relationship between the palace and the Umayyad town.

• from Jericho - Introduction - click link to open new tab

Whitcomb (1988:63) suggested an initial destruction affected Hisham's Palace after which occupation continued.

Ceramics of this period occurred on or near the floor amid destruction debris, fallen columns, and stone elements and tended to occupy a stratum of about 40 cm. Also lying on the various floors were materials that Baramki took as evidence for interrupted and unfinished construction: plaster and marble screen production, stacked roof tiles, and window glass. Floors were either not laid or showed little or no wear on the limestone (see Baramki 1937: 167, for a summary of this evidence). The evidence from the drawn sherds indicates at least two-thirds of the excavated locations had substantial Period 1 artifacts on or near the floor, perhaps twice the occupation Baramki recognized (Table 1).

The problem of interpretation of this ceramic evidence is one of depositional and functional implications. As mentioned above, the distribution of each type is limited to the distribution of the drawn examples, since Baramki's discussion of types incurs some distortions. More important, there is no indication of the quantity of each type and condition of preservation. Thus one can only guess whether a particular location has random sherds of refuse piles or vessels suddenly broken in their place of usage. The spread in height suggests the former depositional pattern, implying usage continuing after the cessation of building and after an initial destruction (ca. 750-800).

Whitcomb (1988:64) further reports that the deposits of Period 1 may have begun in the 740s but continued uninterrupted for the remainder of that century.

Alfonsi et al (2013) dated the causitive earthquake for the major seismic destruction at Hisham's Palace to the earthquake of 1033 CE unlike previous researchers who dated it to one of the Sabbatical Year earthquakes. Their discussion is reproduced below:

The archaeological data testify to an uninterrupted occupancy from eighth century until 1000 A.D. of the Hisham palace (Whitcomb, 1988). Therefore, if earthquakes occurred in this time period, the effects should not have implied a total destruction with consequent occupancy contraction or abandonment. Toppled walls and columns in the central court cover debris containing 750-850 A.D. old ceramic shards (Whitcomb, 1988). Recently unearthed collapses north of the court confirm a widespread destruction after the eighth century (Jericho Mafjar Project - The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago). These elements support the action of a destructive shaking event at the site later than the 749 A.D. earthquake. The two well-constrained, major historical earthquakes recognized in the southern Jordan Valley are the 749 and 1033 A.D. (Table 1; Marco et al (2003); Guidoboni and Comastri, 2005). We assign an IX—X intensity degree to the here-recorded Hisham damage, whereas a VII degree has been attributed to the 749 A.D. earthquake at the site (Marco et al, 2003). Furthermore, Whitcomb (1988) defines an increment of occupation of the palace between 900 and 1000 A.D. followed by a successive occupation in the 1200-1400 A.D. time span. On the basis of the above, and because no pottery remains are instead associated with the 1000-1200 A.D. period at Hisham palace (Whitcomb, 1988), we suggest a temporary, significant contraction or abandonment of the site as consequence of a severe destruction in the eleventh century.

Effect	Location	Image(s)	Description
Fallen columns Collapsed Walls	Central Court and elsewhere Figure 2 Plan of the palace of Khirbet al-Mafjar, after Barakmi 1942b, fig. 1 Whitcomb (1988) Fig. 2d Map of the surveyed coseismic effects at Hisham palace (Khirbet al-Mafjar site) Nh - North hall Cc - Central court Cl - Cloister crack and fault; black arrow, direction of movement tilting and warping of wall (arrow toward the direction of movement) column of the ground floor (larger symbol) and of the first floor (smaller symbol); circle, column top deformation of floor (sunk and pop-up) fracture density (>1/8 m2) Original plan of the palace is modified from Hamilton (1959) Alfonsi et al (2013)	Fig. 3a Fig. 3a View of the central court from the south: white arrows,fracture alignments along the pavement structure; black arrows,debris lying under the collapsed columns. Widespread tumbles and column failures are exposed. Alfonsi et al (2013)	The direction of column failure is due to the traction effect of the first-floor collapse. - Alfonsi et al (2013)
Displaced Walls	east—west bearing walls Figure 2 Plan of the palace of Khirbet al-Mafjar, after Barakmi 1942b, fig. 1 Whitcomb (1988) Fig. 2d Map of the surveyed coseismic effects at Hisham palace (Khirbet al-Mafjar site) Nh - North hall Cc - Central court Cl - Cloister crack and fault; black arrow, direction of movement tilting and warping of wall (arrow toward the direction of movement) column of the ground floor (larger symbol) and of the first floor (smaller symbol); circle, column top deformation of floor (sunk and pop-up) fracture density (>1/8 m2) Original plan of the palace is modified from Hamilton (1959) Alfonsi et al (2013)	Fig. 4b - east-west bearing wall Fig. 4b Mixed Mode I—II (open-shear) fracture of an east—west-striking bearing wall (view from west). Note by JW: In Fracture Mechanics Mode I = Opening mode (a tensile stress normal to the plane of the crack) and Mode II = Sliding mode (a shear stress acting parallel to the plane of the crack and perpendicular to the crack front). Alfonsi et al (2013) 4a - east—west bearing wall of the North hall Figure 4a Closely spaced faults with 10 cm left-lateral slips crossing the east—west-oriented bearing wall of the North hall (view from southeast). Alfonsi et al (2013)	Some structures with mixed shear (sinistral)-opening mode have also been recognized (Fig.4b). - Alfonsi et al (2013)
Tilted Walls Folded walls	various locations Figure 2 Plan of the palace of Khirbet al-Mafjar, after Barakmi 1942b, fig. 1 Whitcomb (1988) Fig. 2d Map of the surveyed coseismic effects at Hisham palace (Khirbet al-Mafjar site) Nh - North hall Cc - Central court Cl - Cloister crack and fault; black arrow, direction of movement tilting and warping of wall (arrow toward the direction of movement) column of the ground floor (larger symbol) and of the first floor (smaller symbol); circle, column top deformation of floor (sunk and pop-up) fracture density (>1/8 m2) Original plan of the palace is modified from Hamilton (1959) Alfonsi et al (2013)	Fig. 3b Fig. 3b Tilted bearing wall a meter wide, the black arrow indicates the direction of inertial wall movement (view from northwest). Alfonsi et al (2013) Fig. 7b Tilted Walls Karcz and Kafri (1981)	Several walls are tilted and/or warped up to 15° (Figs. 2 and 3b). - Alfonsi et al (2013)
Damaged Arches Human remains	Room IVa - a room facing the east cloister Figure 2 Plan of the palace of Khirbet al-Mafjar, after Barakmi 1942b, fig. 1 Whitcomb (1988) Fig. 2d Map of the surveyed coseismic effects at Hisham palace (Khirbet al-Mafjar site) Nh - North hall Cc - Central court Cl - Cloister crack and fault; black arrow, direction of movement tilting and warping of wall (arrow toward the direction of movement) column of the ground floor (larger symbol) and of the first floor (smaller symbol); circle, column top deformation of floor (sunk and pop-up) fracture density (>1/8 m2) Original plan of the palace is modified from Hamilton (1959) Alfonsi et al (2013)	Plate XXXV.2 Fallen arch in Room IVa Baramki (1938) Plate XXXV.3 Fallen arch in Room IVa Baramki (1938) Plate XXXV.4 Skeleton under debris of fallen arch in Room IVa Baramki (1938)	A human skeleton found in a room facing the east cloister under debris of an arch that collapsed in 1000-1400 A.D. could be also indicative of seismic shaking (Baramki, 1938). - Alfonsi et al (2013)
Pop-ups on regular pavements	Central Court and Cloisters Figure 2 Plan of the palace of Khirbet al-Mafjar, after Barakmi 1942b, fig. 1 Whitcomb (1988) Fig. 2d Map of the surveyed coseismic effects at Hisham palace (Khirbet al-Mafjar site) Nh - North hall Cc - Central court Cl - Cloister crack and fault; black arrow, direction of movement tilting and warping of wall (arrow toward the direction of movement) column of the ground floor (larger symbol) and of the first floor (smaller symbol); circle, column top deformation of floor (sunk and pop-up) fracture density (>1/8 m2) Original plan of the palace is modified from Hamilton (1959) Alfonsi et al (2013)	Fig. 7f Fractures across the western part of the central court Karcz and Kafri (1981) Fig. 6c Misalignments in flagstone pavements, no signs of distortion, crushing nor overriding Karcz and Kafri (1981)	The flagstones are deformed in a pop-up-like array. - Alfonsi et al (2013)
Fault Scarps (undated)	north wall of an archaeological trench 50 m north of the north hall area	Fig. 4c Fig. 4c Part of a 6 m wide shear zone consisting of > 50° dipping north—south-striking fractures and faults (in red) outcropping on the north wall of an archaeological trench. Blue lines allow the eye to identify the displaced flood-related deposits. View from south. Alfonsi et al (2013)	Fifty meters north of the north hall area, we observed a 6 m wide shear zone consisting of high-angle fractures and faults exposed on the northern wall of an archaeological trench (Fig. 4c) The vertical displacement across this zone is of the order of tens of centimeters. No data are available to strictly constraint the age of faulting. - Alfonsi et al (2013)
Shear Zone	Drainage channel in the northern section of the site	Fig. 5 Figure 5 Drainage channel in the northern section of the site affected by fracturing closely aligned with the shear zone outcropping along the northern trench edge (view from southeast). Alfonsi et al (2013)	Drainage channel in the northern section of the site affected by fracturing closely aligned with the shear zone outcropping along the northern trench edge - Alfonsi et al (2013)

• There is more archaeoseismic evidence in Baramki's Excavation Reports

Effect	Image(s)	Source
Misalignments in flagstone pavements no signs of distortion, crushing nor overriding	Fig. 6a Misalignments in flagstone pavements, no signs of distortion, crushing nor overriding Karcz and Kafri (1981) Fig. 6b Misalignments in flagstone pavements, no signs of distortion, crushing nor overriding Karcz and Kafri (1981) Fig. 6c Misalignments in flagstone pavements, no signs of distortion, crushing nor overriding Karcz and Kafri (1981)	Karcz and Kafri (1981)
Gap between Walls	Fig. 6d A joint-like gap between the outer wall and a partition wall Karcz and Kafri (1981)	Karcz and Kafri (1981)
Impact Fractures	Fig. 6e Features of impact Karcz and Kafri (1981)	Karcz and Kafri (1981)
suture between remnant and rebuilt wall	Fig. 6f A suture between the remnant and rebuilt wall. Karcz and Kafri (1981)	Karcz and Kafri (1981)
Tilted Walls	Fig. 7a Tilted Walls Karcz and Kafri (1981) Fig. 7b Tilted Walls Karcz and Kafri (1981)	Karcz and Kafri (1981)
Collapse Debris	Fig. 7c Remnant of collapse debris Karcz and Kafri (1981) Plate LXXV.2 Bricks in debris at west end of Hall I Baramki (1936)	Karcz and Kafri (1981) and Baramki (1936)
Fractured Walls	Fig. 7d Fractures in the palace walls. Karcz and Kafri (1981) Fig. 7e Fractures in the palace walls. Karcz and Kafri (1981)	Karcz and Kafri (1981)
Fractured Floors	Fig. 7f Fractures across the western part of the central court Karcz and Kafri (1981)	Karcz and Kafri (1981)
Fractured Wall Repairs	Fig. 7g Fractures and fissures, apparently repaired in course of reconstruction Karcz and Kafri (1981)	Karcz and Kafri (1981)
Severely fractured Doorway	Fig. 7h Fractures near a through walk, inclined towards the sill Karcz and Kafri (1981)	Karcz and Kafri (1981)
Distorted and Blocked Doorway	Fig. 7i A throughwalk , blocked during a later occupancy, with signs of deformation. Karcz and Kafri (1981)	Karcz and Kafri (1981)
Fractured Walls	Plate LXXIV.2 Pier (iv) Hall I, showing effects of earthquake Baramki (1936) Plate LXXXII.2 Door between Room a and hall Baramki (1936)	Baramki (1936)
Fallen Arch	Plate XXXV.2 Fallen arch in Room IVa Baramki (1938) Plate XXXV.3 Fallen arch in Room IVa Baramki (1938) Plate XXXV.4 Skeleton under debris of fallen arch in Room IVa Baramki (1938)	Baramki (1938)
Orientation of fractures and tilted walls	Fig. 8 Orientation of fractures and tilted walls, palace precinct. Karcz and Kafri (1981)	Karcz and Kafri (1981)

Alfonsi et al (2013) documented and measured orientations of archeoseismic damage such as tilted structures, displaced walls and pavements, and colonnade failure. By combining their their field work (70%) with previous studies (30%) by Karcz and Kafri, 1981 and Reches and Hoexter, 1981 they were able to produce an array of useful archeoseismic data. They describe the archeoseismic evidence below:

The observed damage defines a severe earthquake scenario. Most of the brittle structures affect the supporting and divisor walls ( Figs. 2

Fig. 2d

Map of the surveyed coseismic effects at Hisham palace (Khirbet al-Mafjar site)

• Nh - North hall
• Cc - Central court
• Cl - Cloister

1. crack and fault; black arrow, direction of movement
2. tilting and warping of wall (arrow toward the direction of movement)
3. column of the ground floor (larger symbol) and of the first floor (smaller symbol); circle, column top
4. deformation of floor (sunk and pop-up)
5. fracture density (>1/8 m²)

Original plan of the palace is modified from Hamilton (1959)

Alfonsi et al (2013)

, 4a

Figure 4a

Closely spaced faults with 10 cm left-lateral slips crossing the east—west-oriented bearing wall of the North hall (view from southeast).

Alfonsi et al (2013)

and 4b

Fig. 4b

Mixed Mode I—II (open-shear) fracture of an east—west-striking bearing wall (view from west).

Note by JW: In Fracture Mechanics Mode I = Opening mode (a tensile stress normal to the plane of the crack) and Mode II = Sliding mode (a shear stress acting parallel to the plane of the crack and perpendicular to the crack front).

Alfonsi et al (2013)

). These structures are faults and open cracks with dip generally > 50° and width up to 20 cm. The faults offset archaeological structures with left-lateral slips up to 10 cm. Some structures with mixed shear (sinistral)-opening mode have also been recognized ( Fig.4b

Fig. 4b

Mixed Mode I—II (open-shear) fracture of an east—west-striking bearing wall (view from west).

Note by JW: In Fracture Mechanics Mode I = Opening mode (a tensile stress normal to the plane of the crack) and Mode II = Sliding mode (a shear stress acting parallel to the plane of the crack and perpendicular to the crack front).

Alfonsi et al (2013)

). In the western portion of the pavement of the central court, roughly north—south striking cracks and vertical deformations occur ( Fig. 3

Fig. 3

Pictures from Matson and Matson (1934-1939) showing the ruins of the palace as appeared during Baramki excavation

1. View of the central court from the south: white arrows, fracture alignments along the pavement structure; black arrows, debris lying under the collapsed columns. Widespread tumbles and column failures are exposed.
2. Tilted bearing wall a meter wide, the black arrow indicates the direction of inertial wall movement (view from northwest)

Alfonsi et al (2013)

). The flagstones are deformed in a pop-up-like array. These deformations have a linear continuity of about 30 m and align to the faults and shear-opening structures affecting the walls of the north and south cloister ( Fig. 2

Fig. 2d

Map of the surveyed coseismic effects at Hisham palace (Khirbet al-Mafjar site)

• Nh - North hall
• Cc - Central court
• Cl - Cloister

1. crack and fault; black arrow, direction of movement
2. tilting and warping of wall (arrow toward the direction of movement)
3. column of the ground floor (larger symbol) and of the first floor (smaller symbol); circle, column top
4. deformation of floor (sunk and pop-up)
5. fracture density (>1/8 m²)

Original plan of the palace is modified from Hamilton (1959)

Alfonsi et al (2013)

). The fractures at Hisham palace have a preferred north—south strike and a second-order east—west strike (Rose diagram in Fig. 2a

Fig. 2a

Rose diagram of strike of fractures

Alfonsi et al (2013)

). Fracture density (shaded pale orange areas in Fig. 2d

Fig. 2d

Map of the surveyed coseismic effects at Hisham palace (Khirbet al-Mafjar site)

• Nh - North hall
• Cc - Central court
• Cl - Cloister

1. crack and fault; black arrow, direction of movement
2. tilting and warping of wall (arrow toward the direction of movement)
3. column of the ground floor (larger symbol) and of the first floor (smaller symbol); circle, column top
4. deformation of floor (sunk and pop-up)
5. fracture density (>1/8 m²)

Original plan of the palace is modified from Hamilton (1959)

Alfonsi et al (2013)

) evidences two roughly north—south elongated subparallel areas located on the western side of Hisham palace, and one, also north—south elongated, on the eastern side. Fifty meters north of the north hall area, we observed a 6 m wide shear zone consisting of high-angle fractures and faults exposed on the northern wall of an archaeological trench ( Fig. 4c

Fig. 4c

Part of a 6 m wide shear zone consisting of >50° dipping north—south-striking fractures and faults (in red) outcropping on the north wall of an archaeological trench. Blue lines allow the eye to identify the displaced flood-related deposits. View from south.

Alfonsi et al (2013)

) The vertical displacement across this zone is of the order of tens of centimeters. No data are available to strictly constraint the age of faulting. The plaster and the drainage channel close to the trench wall are affected by fracturing aligned with the deformed zone ( Fig. 5

Fig. 5

Drainage channel in the northern section of the site affected by fracturing closely aligned with the shear zone outcropping along the northern trench edge (view from southeast).

Alfonsi et al (2013)

).

Several walls are tilted and/or warped up to 15° ( Figs. 2

Fig. 2d

Map of the surveyed coseismic effects at Hisham palace (Khirbet al-Mafjar site)

• Nh - North hall
• Cc - Central court
• Cl - Cloister

1. crack and fault; black arrow, direction of movement
2. tilting and warping of wall (arrow toward the direction of movement)
3. column of the ground floor (larger symbol) and of the first floor (smaller symbol); circle, column top
4. deformation of floor (sunk and pop-up)
5. fracture density (>1/8 m²)

Original plan of the palace is modified from Hamilton (1959)

Alfonsi et al (2013)

and 3b

Fig. 3b

Tilted bearing wall a meter wide, the black arrow indicates the direction of inertial wall movement (view from northwest).

Alfonsi et al (2013)

). Rose diagram in Figure 2b

Fig. 2b

Rose diagram of direction of tilting versus cumulative length of titled walls

Alfonsi et al (2013)

shows the cumulative length of tilting, for which the preferred sense is north. The occurrence of this preferred sense of tilting confirms the seismic nature of the observed damage (Paz (1997)). A human skeleton found in a room facing the east cloister under debris of an arch that collapsed in 1000-1400 A.D. could be also indicative of seismic shaking (Baramki, 1938).

The overall position of the failed columns has been reconstructed from original reports and pictures and it is reported in Figure 2

Fig. 2d

Map of the surveyed coseismic effects at Hisham palace (Khirbet al-Mafjar site)

• Nh - North hall
• Cc - Central court
• Cl - Cloister

1. crack and fault; black arrow, direction of movement
2. tilting and warping of wall (arrow toward the direction of movement)
3. column of the ground floor (larger symbol) and of the first floor (smaller symbol); circle, column top
4. deformation of floor (sunk and pop-up)
5. fracture density (>1/8 m²)

Original plan of the palace is modified from Hamilton (1959)

Alfonsi et al (2013)

. Most colonnade collapses cluster mainly toward the southeastern quadrant (Rose diagram in Fig. 2c

Fig. 2c

Rose diagram of direction of column collapse.

Alfonsi et al (2013)

). The direction of column failure is due to the traction effect of the first-floor collapse.

Figures

Discussion

Alfonsi et al (2013) discussed the seismotectonic implications of the archeoseismic data unearthed from Hisham's Palace as follows:

The preferred sense of tilting of the Hisham walls and the colonnade-collapse direction indicate, according to structural dynamic models by Paz (1997) and Hinzen (2009) on inelastic inertial structures, a ground shaking by seismic waves coming from the northern quadrant. Although the cause of most of the earthquake-induced damage at Hisham palace is ground shaking, some of the mapped features have a clear tectonic origin. These features include the occurrence of

1. left-lateral faults
2. north—south- to north-northeast—south-southwest-striking fractures and cracks
3. aligned fractures up to 30 m long crossing the whole palace formed during the 1033 A.D. earthquake
4. a 6 m wide north—south- to north-northeast—south-southwest-striking shear zone affecting the ground.

All these data define a syn- and post-1033 A.D. brittle deformation zone. This zone may represent the southern prolongation of the north—south-striking, subvertical fault recognized by field and seismic data (Fig. 6). This fault accommodates the deepening of the Jericho syntectonic sedimentary basin. The prevailing left-lateral slips we recognize at Hisham palace along north—south- to north-northeast—south-southwest-striking structures are fully compatible with the strike-slip stress regime of the Jordan area of the Dead Sea fault system, which is characterized by a northwest—southeast subhorizontal σ₁ (Fig. 6; Hofstetter et. al., 2007). As a result, we conclude that the 1033 A.D. earthquake originated within this stress field.

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