The Wadi Faynan Project: the South Cemetery excavation, Jordan, 1996: A preliminary report

Abstract

The excavation of a large cemetery site known as the South Cemetery, close to the large settlement of Khirbat Faynan, was undertaken as a joint project between the British Institute at Amman for Archaeology and History, and the Department of Anthropology, Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, Yarmouk University as part of the Wadi Faynan Project. In response to the continued looting of the site, six weeks of excavation were carried out. These excavations confirmed the large scale and nature of the cemetery and dated the main phase of its use to the Late Roman to Early Byzantine period. Preliminary pathological analysis of the sample suggests a fairly healthy population.