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Kataret Es-Samra: A Late Bronze Age Cemetery in Transjordan?

The katarrah region is a geological formation (fig. 1) consisting of a succession of barren, grey cliffs of Pleistocene Lisan marls separating the ghor and the zor of the Jordan Valley (Baly 1974: 199-201. Kataret es-Samra ("katarrah of the Dark Woman") is the specific, local name given to an area in this region ca. 0.5 km2, roughly 40 km northwest of Amman and 5 km north of the confluence of the Wadi Zarqa (biblical Jabbok) and the Jordan River (fig. 2).' Although Nelson Glueck travelled and surveyed extensively in Transjordan, apparently he did not explore the area presently under consideration (Glueck 1951), and it was not investigated archaeologically until it was visited in 1976 by members of the Jordan Valley Survey team, whose members. were drawn from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, Jordan University, and the American Center for Oriental Research.2 In addition to recording surface evidence of occupation at least as early as the Early Bronze Age, the survey team excavated a LB tomb in order to protect its rich contents from the illicit digging that had already begun. During May and June 1978 a more intensive investigation of the Kataret es-Samra region was begun by the author under the auspices of the American Schools of Oriental Research.3 This work was comprised of two facets: excavation, in an attempt to determine whether or not the tomb excavated by the survey team was an isolated occurrence or rather a single element in a larger, LB cemetery; and survey, in order to initiate a more detailed study of the sequence of cultural development in this transitional ecological zone. The results of this brief initial season are presented here.