Jawa Dam (Jordan)

The drinking water reservoir of Jawa was a water supply system in the copper- stone age settlement Jawa in Jordan.

The town was settled Jawa 3750-3350 BC. It is located east of Amman in the basalt desert. In three phases then 10 ponds were built to supply water. The biggest took 31,000 m³ and had a 7 m high dam.

Three-phase

In Phase I, the ponds of the city Initially a 1-3 west. Your storage volume was together about 42,000 m³. The largest pond, pond 3, had a shut-off, which was built from two 1 m wide and 5 m high walls in the clear distance of 2 m, which had a filling of earth, clay and ash for sealing. The air side, there was an embankment of Erdschüttmaterial with a slope inclination of 1:2.5. Water side was a much smaller debris accumulation, possibly arranged as drainage. Southeast of the city arose Pond 4 with 4000 m³ of storage capacity. The ponds were interconnected by channels and water was passed through diversion dams into it.

In Phase II, the ponds were built 5 and 6 also southeast of the city. Now total of approximately 50,000 m³ storage space were available.

In Phase III apparently the dam of the pond should be 3 increased by two meters. He could then take 31,000 cubic meters, but was probably never completely finished, because he would have flooded parts of the city. Maybe he has therefore been destroyed. The remains of this stone dam are still to be seen well. Then could the ponds 7-9 at some distance to the city and have been built 10 to the southeast in the Pools 4 to 6 of the pond. The dams of the ponds 7-9 were constructed similar to the old pond dam of 3 These three had a storage capacity of 2,000 cubic meters, the pond 10 10,000 m³. The buildings of Phase III, especially pond 10, are more primitive than the older and more evidence of the decline of the city, who may have been a result of fighting between residents of the Lower and the Upper Town.

Research

Today only ruins of the city and hints of ponds available. They were rediscovered in 1931 from an airplane and researched from 1950 by Winnett, 1972-1976 Helms and 1988 by bird. At the location of ponds 1 and 2 is now a modern-day water basin.