Al-Muwaqqar

Al-Muwaqqar (Arabic: الموقر‎) is a district in the Amman Governorate of north-western Jordan.[1] The village contains the scant ruins of an Umayyad palace, the Qasr al-Muwaqqar, one of the desert castles. Little remains of the palace today except several acanthus leaf capitals and gauge of a water reservoir.[2]

Al-Muwaqqar

الموقر
District
Location of district in Amman
Coordinates: 31°48′56″N 36°5′39″E
Country Jordan
GovernorateAmman Governorate
Time zoneUTC + 2

The district is the headquarters of the 3rd Armored Division and a police training center. Most of the families which are staying in the region are from Bani Sakhr, like Al-Khraisha, Al-Arabid, Al-Jbour, Al-Qudahh.

Archaeology: Qasr al-Muwaqqar

The village of contains the ruins of an Umayyad complex, the Qasr al-Muwaqqar, a qasr-type fortified palace also known as a desert castle. Almost nothing remains of the palace today except several acanthus-leaf capitals and[2] a water level gauge for a palace cistern, inscribed with Kufic signs which indicate a maximum level of over thirty feet (c. 10 metres), very impressive for the arid climate of the area.[3]

Two distinct qusur, Muwaqqar and Mushash

Despite some name confusion, which combined the two names into one, the following are two distinct Umayyad sites which contain qusur (plural of qasr): al-Muwaqqar and Qasr al-Mushash.[4] They lay 19.4 km apart on the historical caravan route between Amman and Azraq via Qusayr 'Amra, on which all these localities acted as way stations.[4]

See also

References
  1. Maplandia world gazetteer
  2. Al-Muwaqqar at AtlasTours.net
  3. Jordan's Desert Castles, Aramco World magazine, March 1963, pp. 10-13 (see p. 11)
  4. Bartl, Karin (2016). McPhillips, Stephen; Wordsworth, Paul D. (eds.). Water management in desert regions: Early Islamic Qasr Mushash. Landscapes of the Islamic World: Archaeology, History, and Ethnography, Part I: Hydroeconomies: managing and living with water. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 50-68 [see p. 63]. ISBN 9780812292763. Retrieved 19 July 2019.


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