Welcome to the Bir Madhkur Project. Bir Madhkur is a major caravan station along the ancient Spice Route that connected Petra in southern Jordan with the Mediterranean port of Gaza. The site was occupied in the late Hellenistic (Nabataean), Roman, and Byzantine periods. The main features of the site include a Late Roman/Byzantine army fort, a domestic settlement surrounding the fort, a bath complex or an earlier caravan station, and various ancillary structures. Sites in the vicinity of Bir Madhkur include other caravan stations, farmhouses, and nomadic encampments.The Bir Madhkur Project examines, through historical, archaeological, and ethnographic research, the function of Bir Madhkur as a regional center of social, economic, and cultural interaction and exchange.

Copyright © 2009 Andrew M. Smith II, The George Washington University