408. Umm Qēs, Gadara of the Decapolis | أم قيس / جدارا

Irbid Governorate

Maqām / Weli Abū l-Naml

JADIS no. 2122001

MEGA no. 4118 (?), 26541

Coordinates: 32°39'25.3"N 35°40'08.6"E

32.657028, 35.669056

(approximately).

Plan: It has not been possible to locate the exact topographic point of the demolished maqām; no traces of it remain on the surface. The sanctuary was obviously built within a larger Muslim cemetery dating to the Mamluk and earlier Ottoman periods in the lower city NE of the late antique W city gate (Mershen - Weber 2015). The location of the shrine must be searched in an olive tree grove to the N of the paved decumanus maximus (fig. 408.1).

Plan: unknown.

Measurements: unknown.

Exterior: unknown.

Interior: unknown.

Building Materials: reused Roman/Byzantine Basalt and limestone blocks.

Construction details: alternately horizontal masonry courses of white limestone and black basalt ashlars.

Preservation: entirely destroyed after 1967, according to oral information blown off with dynamite and the building stones removed by bulldozing.

Inscription(s): none known.

Date(s): Mamluk.

Traveler Reports: “On a modern burying ground of the villagers, near this north-west angle of the hill...we observed a fantastic building of the Mohammedans, in the walls of which the grey and black stones gathered from the ruins had been arranged in regular layers, as to show, by their succession, broad stripes of black and white” (Buckingham 21822); “...the ruin of a Mohammedan tomb, built up of the ancient remains from part of Umm Keis”(Schumacher 1890 [2010] ). “Ebenso werden dem Abu en-Naml in Mukês Opfer dargebracht, wobei die Steine des Grabes mit Blut bestrichen werden.” –  „Die Leute von Mukês, dem alten Gadara, rufen in der Not: ‚ja dschiddi Abu en-Naml‘- ,,0 mein Großvater! Abu en-Naml!" (Curtiss 1903).

Bibliography: Buckingham II. 21822, 439; Schumacher 1890, 88; Curtiss 1903, 219-220, 283; Steuernagel 1927, A. 509; Mershen 1991,135–41; Weber 2002, 132 note 1011; Daire 2002, 93-95 with note 377; Mershen - Weber 2015, 227-273.