Umm Qais (), also known as Qays, is a town in northern

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

principally known for its proximity to the ruins of the ancient

Gadara Gadara ( or ; ), in some texts Gedaris, was an ancient Hellenistic city in what is now Jordan, for a long time member of the Decapolis city league, a former bishopric and present Latin Catholic titular see. Its ruins are today located at Umm ...

. It is the largest city in the

Bani Kinanah Department Bani Kinanah Department () is one of the nine departments that constitute the Irbid Governorate of Jordan. It has a population of over 130,000. Its administrative center is in Sama al-Rousan. There are five municipal councils in the department, a ...

and

Irbid Governorate Irbid or Irbed () is a governorate in Jordan, located north of Amman, the country's capital. The capital of the governorate is the city of Irbid. The governorate has the second largest population in Jordan after Amman Governorate, and the highest ...

in the extreme northwest of the country, near Jordan's borders with

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

and

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

. Today, the site is divided into three main areas: the archaeological site (Gadara), the traditional village (Umm Qais), and the modern town of Umm Qais.

Location

Umm Qais is located 28 km north of

Irbid Irbid (), known in ancient times as Arabella or Arbela (Άρβηλα in Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek), is the capital and largest city of Irbid Governorate. It has the second-largest metropolitan population in Jordan after Amman, with a ...

and 120 km north of

Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...

. It expanded from the ruins of ancient Gadara, which are located on a ridge above sea level, overlooking the

Sea of Tiberias The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth and the second-lowest la ...

, the

Golan Heights The Golan Heights, or simply the Golan, is a basaltic plateau at the southwest corner of Syria. It is bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee and Hula Valley in the west, the Anti-Lebanon mountains with Mount Hermon in t ...

, and the

Yarmouk River The Yarmuk River (, ; Greek: Ἱερομύκης, ; or ''Heromicas''; sometimes spelled Yarmouk) is the largest tributary of the Jordan River. It runs in Jordan, Syria and Israel, and drains much of the Hauran plateau. Its main tributaries are ...

gorge. Strategically central and located close to multiple water sources, Umm Qais has historically attracted a high level of interest.

History

Antiquity

Gadara was a centre of

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

culture in the region during the

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

periods. The oldest archaeological evidence at Umm Qais, extends back to the second half of the third century BC. and the site appears to have been founded as a

military colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

's Macedonian Greeks. However, the site's name "Gadara" is not Greek in origin, but rather a Greek version of a local Semitic name meaning "fortifications" or "the fortified city" suggesting the military colony was founded on a pre-existing fortified site. Located on the boundary between Seleucid and Ptolemaic territory, the city was strategically important and was repeatedly the focus of military conquests throughout the succession of

Syrian Wars The Syrian Wars were a series of six wars between the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, successor states to Alexander the Great's empire, during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC over the region then called Coele-Syria, one of ...

between 274–188 BCE. The city's military importance during this period was noted by the Greek historian

Polybius Polybius (; , ; ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 ...

' describing it in 218 BCE as a fortress and "the strongest of all places in the region". The Roman-Seleucid War (192–188 BCE) weakened Seleucid control over the region devolving autonomy in Palestine and trans-Jordan to the Hasmonean,

Iturean Iturea or Ituraea (, ''Itouraía'') is the Greek name of a Levantine region north of Galilee during the Late Hellenistic and early Roman periods. It extended from Mount Lebanon across the plain of Marsyas to the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in Syri ...

and

Nabatean The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Levant. Their settlements—most prominently the assumed capital city of Raqmu (present-day Petra ...

kingdoms whose rivalries continued to make Gadara a strategically important city and the focus of continued conflict. In 98 BCE the Hasmonean King

Alexander Jannaeus Alexander Jannaeus ( , English: "Alexander Jannaios", usually Latinised to "Alexander Jannaeus"; ''Yannaʾy''; born Jonathan ) was the second king of the Hasmonean dynasty, who ruled over an expanding kingdom of Judaea from 103 to 76 BCE. ...

subjected the city to a 10 month siege, wresting control of the city and the trade routes to the ports of the Eastern Mediterranean that passed through it from the Nabateans. The Nabatean response culminated in Nabatean King Obdas 1st' decisive victory over Jannaeus at the

Battle of Gadara Battle of Gadara was fought between the Judaean Hasmoneans and the Arab Nabataeans around 93 BC in Gadara in modern-day Jordan. The battle came after the Nabataeans felt threatened by the Hasmonean King Alexander Jannaeus's territorial acquisit ...

in 93 BCE. In 63 BCE, Roman general

Pompey Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey ( ) or Pompey the Great, was a Roman general and statesman who was prominent in the last decades of the Roman Republic. ...

conquered the region, Gadara was rebuilt and became a member of the semi-autonomous Roman

Decapolis The Decapolis (Greek: ) was a group of ten Greek Hellenistic cities on the eastern frontier of the Greek and late Roman Empire in the Southern Levant in the first centuries BC and AD. Most of the cities were located to the east of the Jordan ...

.. 33 years later

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

attached it to the Jewish kingdom of his ally, Herod. After King Herod's death in 4 BCE, Gadara became part of the Roman province of

. To supply larger populations Gadara, and the neighbouring

cities of

Adraa Daraa (, Levantine Arabic: ) is a city in southwestern Syria, north of the Jordan–Syria border, border with Jordan. It is the capital of Daraa Governorate in the Hauran region. Located south of Damascus on the Damascus–Amman highway, ...

(Dera'a, Syria) and

Abila Abila, also spelled Abyla, may refer to: Places * Abila (Decapolis), Abila in the Decapolis, ancient city in the Levant * Abila Lysaniou, capital of ancient Abilene, northwest of present-day Damascus, Syria * Abila (Peraea), archaeological site in ...

(Qweilbeh, Jordan) undertook construction of a water supply system of 170 km of aqueduct tunnels connecting the cities to springs throughout southern Syria and an artificially constructed lake at Dille. Constructed between 90–210 CE the network of rock cut tunnels included 2,900 access shafts, and a single 106 km section represents one of the most significant hydro-engineering accomplishments of the ancient world. During the

Severan The Severan dynasty, sometimes called the Septimian dynasty, ruled the Roman Empire between 193 and 235. It was founded by the emperor Septimius Severus () and Julia Domna, his wife, when Septimius emerged victorious from civil war of 193 - 197, ...

period (193–235 CE) the city underwent a rapid expansion westwards and many of the large civic monuments still visible on the site today date to this period and attest to an increase in importance and prosperity. After the Christianisation of the

Eastern Roman Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

, Gadara retained its important regional status and became for many years the seat of a Christian

bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

Early Islamic period

The

Battle of Yarmouk The Battle of the Yarmuk (also spelled Yarmouk; ) was a major battle between the army of the Byzantine Empire and the Arab Muslim forces of the Rashidun Caliphate. The battle consisted of a series of engagements that lasted for six days in Aug ...

in 636 CE a short distance from Gadara, brought the entire region under Arab-Muslim rule. On 18 January 749 CE much of the city was destroyed by the Galilee earthquake. Whilst the city was extensively damaged, archaeological evidence of limited reconstruction, including conversion of the large five aisle basilica church into a mosque indicates the continued settlement of the site at least into the 11th Century. By the 13th Century the site is noted in historic sources under the new name of "Mukais" a local term meaning border place or customs house and from which the modern name of Umm Qais gradual derived.

Ottoman period

In 1596 it appeared in the Ottoman tax registers named as ''Mkeis'', situated in the ''

nahiya A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level divisi ...

'' (subdistrict) of Bani Kinana, part of the

Hauran Sanjak The Hauran Sanjak (, ) was a sanjak of the Ottoman Empire, spanning the southern areas of Ottoman Syria, located in modern-day Syria and Jordan. The city of Daraa was the sanjak's capital. The sanjak had a population of 182,805 in 1914. Subdist ...

. It had 21 households and 15 bachelors; all

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

, in addition to 3

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

households. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on agricultural products; including wheat, barley, summer crops, fruit trees, goats and bee-hives. The total tax was 8,500

akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (anglicized as ''akche'', ''akcheh'' or ''aqcha''; ; , , in Europe known as '' asper'') was a silver coin mainly known for being the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. It was also used in other states includi ...

. In 1806

Ulrich Jasper Seetzen Ulrich Jasper Seetzen (30 January 1767September 1811) also known as Musa Al-Hakim was a German explorer of Arabia and Palestine (region), Palestine from Jever, German Frisia. An alternative spelling of his name, Ulrich Iospar Sentzen, is sometime ...

visited Umm Qais and identified it as the location of ancient Gadara, describing the Ottoman settlement and the tombs and other monuments still visible on the surface. The ancient ruins at ''Um Keis'' were recorded again by western visitors in 1816 and 1838. By 1899 Schumacher, visiting the site as part of his survey work for the Hijaz railway records the village had expanded significantly with the construction of larger houses, noting also that many of the tombs recorded by early visitors were no longer present. Umm Qais's most impressive building, the Ottoman governor's residence known as Beit Rousan, "Rousan House", dates to this period of expansion in the Late Ottoman period.

Modern period

In 1920 the Madafa and Hosh (courtyard) of Hajj Mahmoud al Rousan's house in Umm Qais hosted a conference of Arab leaders from across the middle east to draw up a treaty in response to the British and French plan to divide the region following the end of the British and French Mandates. The village's school was opened in 1922 by HRH King

Abdullah I of Jordan Abdullah I (Abdullah bin Hussein; 2 February 188220 July 1951) was the ruler of Jordan and its predecessor state Transjordan from 1921 until his assassination in 1951. He was the Emir of Transjordan, a British protectorate, until 1946, when h ...

making it the third oldest school in Jordan after those in

Salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...

and

Kerak Al-Karak (), in English sources often simply Karak, is a city in Jordan known for its medieval castle, the Kerak Castle. The castle is one of the three largest castles in the region, the other two being in Syria. Al-Karak is the capital city of ...

. By 1961 the population of Umm Qais was 1,196 inhabitants. During the 1967 Arab-Israeli war Umm Qais' strategic location put it on the front line of conflict again. Heavy shelling from the Golan Heights and aircraft bombing damaged both the village and the ancient city. The underground Roman mausoleum below the five-aisled basilica in the west of the ancient was discovered by accident by the Jordanian army and the large intact underground chamber was used as a temporary field hospital during the conflict.

Preservation efforts

In 1974 the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology uncovered the ruins of a Byzantine church building in Umm Qais. Since 2005, the Orient Department of the

German Archaeological Institute The German Archaeological Institute (, ''DAI'') is a research institute in the field of archaeology (and other related fields). The DAI is a "federal agency" under the Federal Foreign Office, Federal Foreign Office of Germany. Status, tasks and ...

under the direction of Claudia Bührig has been active at Gadara. The team has uncovered Egyptian and Greek imported pottery, stamped

amphorae An amphora (; ; English ) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storage rooms and packages, tied together with rope and delivered by land ...

, and a Seleucid fortress, among other things. In 2015, the

Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation The Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation is one of many programs run by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs as part of its mission of public diplomacy through educational and cultural programming and ...

and

Yarmouk University Yarmouk University (), also abbreviated YU, is a comprehensive public and state supported university located near the city centre of Irbid in northern Jordan. Since its establishment in 1976, it has been at the forefront of Jordanian and Middle E ...

collaborated to better preserve the Roman Aqueduct of Gadara in Umm Qais. This project was completed in 2018, strengthening the largest remaining subterranean Roman aqueduct.

Tourism

Many visitors come to Umm Qais on day trips from the capital, Amman, roughly to the north, to see its extensive ruins and enjoy its panoramic views. The

Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic languages, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth ...

and

Tiberias Tiberias ( ; , ; ) is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Heb ...

, are visible, and just across the valley of the

is the southern end of the

,For example
UN Resolution 242
,
Text of Resolution at UN.org
(PDF), *,*,*,* under Israeli occupation since the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

in 1967.

Mount Hermon Mount Hermon ( / ALA-LC: ('Mountain of the Sheikh', ), , ) is a mountain, mountain cluster constituting the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. Its summit straddles the Lebanon–Syria border, border between Syria and Lebanon a ...

bordering

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

is visible in the distance on clear days. At Beit Rousan, now housing a visitor Centre and a museum,

statues and Christian mosaics discovered during archaeological excavations of ancient Gadara are exhibited.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * *Weber, Thomas, ''Umm Qais: Gadara of the Decapolis'' (1989. Amman: Economic Press Co.)

External links

GCatholic - (titular) bishopric
* (in Arabic)
Greater Irbid Municipality
(in Arabic) * (in Arabic)
Greco-Roman & Decapolis city of Gadara Photos of Umm Qais
at the

American Center of Research The American Center of Research (ACOR) is a private, not-for-profit scholarly and educational organization. Based in Alexandria, Virginia, with a facility in Amman, Jordan, ACOR promotes knowledge of Jordan and the interconnected region, past an ...

{{Authority control Populated places in Irbid Governorate Archaeological sites in Jordan Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Western Asia Decapolis New Testament cities

Hellenistic colonies