Greek, Hellenistic and Roman-Byzantine Water Management Technology: Overview from Jordan

Because of the widespread effects of Greece and Rome, and the characteristic and easily recognized styles of their monumental architecture and material culture, the issue of their water-management technology is treated here in a separate research. What is agreed upon to be either Hellenistic or Roman-Byzantine in Jordan and the theoretical and classificatory problems of interpretation are discussed in the subsequent research – has a critical effect on how the ‘indigenous’ or Nabataean water-management regime is identified and understood. It is fair to say that there is, at present, considerable confusion over the chronological and typological development of water management structures in Jordan between the middle of the first millennium BC and the middle of the first millennium AD which is the main thing this paper aims to begin to clarify. This paper, therefore, discusses what is known in general about the development of water management in what can be loosely termed the ‘Classical World’, based on both archaeological and historical sources.

Keywords: Jordan; Nabataean; Classical world; Waterworks; Technology