Galilee Earthquake, Jerash

Year, location, and context?

• 749 CE

• Dead Sea Transform Fault Zone: cross-roads between Palestine and Jordan where 10 Greek Hellenistic cities joined

• Roman Jerash integrated into a new Muslim context creating a population boom

Textual evidence: Theophanes

Administrator to Leo IV of Byzantium — writes scientifically about the chronology of earthquakes in the region

• A bit of religious bias at the end but holds valid information

Textual evidence: Chronicle of Zuqnin

Grand building collapes and death

Textual evidence: Elijah of Nisibus

Very credible source in Arabic Christianity — temple collapse and death

Textual evidence: Michael the Syrian

Bishop of Antioc, saint + historian — writes of tremors, building collapse, death across the region, tsunamis

Archaeological Evidence (general)

• Pottery seriation

• Terminus post quem: date after which, earliest possible date for something, layer around is older than the object

• Cracks in aqueducts from seismic activity

• Large scale repairs to a mosque during contemporary time

Archaeological Evidence (specific examples)

• Umayyad houses: elite houses with destruction

• Synagogue abandoned

• Propylaeum church: re-used walls/floors after attempted repairs were abandoned

• Cathedral at Hippos: temple columns with directionality

Bab Amman Landslide

Post 749 CE: not abandoned but never fully recovered

• Scarp: steep/abrupt break in the ground surface — the mark left where land detached/moved