Reinventing the sacred: from shrine to monastery at Jabal Hārūn

Abstract

The Jabal Haroun (Jabal al-Nabī Hārūn), located c.5 km south-west of Petra in southern Jordan, is the highest peak in the area, easily attracting attention and stirring the imagination. According to Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions, the mountain is the burial place of Aaron, Moses' brother. Since 1997, the Finnish Jabal Hārūn Project (FJHP) has carried out archaeological excavations of a Byzantine monastery located on the high plateau of the mountain. But the existence of the monastery represents only part of the whole spectrum of the religious significance accorded to the mountain from Nabataean times, a significance that continued well into the Islamic period. The excavations revealed that the site was initially occupied by a major Nabataean sanctuary, dated to the first century BC/AD. In the later fifth century, a Byzantine monastery was built at the site, but as early as the fourth century — the period of struggle between traditional Nabataean cults and Christianity — the mountain began to be associated with the biblical tradition of the Exodus, and attracted Christian pilgrimages. Apparently, one of the religious phenomena associated with the rise of Christianity in the Near East — the transformation of a pagan, cultic place into a sacred, biblical location — had taken place at Jabal Hārūn. While presenting the history of the Nabataean cult at Jabal Hārūn, the paper will also concentrate on the critical fourth century during which the Christian reinvention of religious tradition took place in Petra.