El Templo de las serpientes: un santuario del Bronce Antiguo I en el poblado de Jebel Al-Mutawwaq (Jordania)

Resumen

The Bronze Age I architecture of the Jebel al-Mutawwaq settlment (Zarqa, Jordan) always repeats the same designs: isolated buildings built out of large blocks of stone, without any carvings or mortar, put up along side a courtyard which forms an integrate part of the dwelling. However, the site which is known as the "Temple of the Serpents"has a series of anomalies which make it different from the normal model. Even though the constitutive elements are the same, the main construction is, however, built into a steep rock which has also been excavated in order to put up the high part of the dwelling and open up a well. In addition the construction of a table or "alter" beside it would indicate that this was not a typical dwelling, but one which had been desigoed with a different purpose in mind: possibly a sanctuary. The appearance of rooms with peculiar structures built onto the courtyard confirmed this, as ddi the original decorations on the ceramics which were different from those normally found in dwellings at the Mutawwaq settlement. The structure of the site leads one to suspect that it could be related to Chalcolithic sanctuaries, like that of En Guedi or that of the Bronze Age (Meguido XIX).