Jawa: Lost City of the Black Desert

“Out of no more elevated motive than going where none would go, I went east late that year and finally reached Jawa on 14 November [1966] – becoming the second, albeit solo, ‘expedition’ to see the place since 1950.” So wrote Svend Helms, the first excavator at the enigmatic ‘lost city’ deep in the Black Desert of eastern Jordan.

It is enigmatic for at least two good reasons. Seeing that barren landscape of black boulders stretching to the far horizon, it is hard to comprehend why anyone would build a ‘city’ in this arid land. It is also enigmatic because until the discovery of Jawa with Helms’ controversial dating in the 4th millennium BCE, it was believed that such massive fortifications and complex water systems could only have been built in the Middle Bronze Age, there being a convenient MBA citadel at Jawa, on top of the 4th millennium settlement.

This paper is the story of the discovery of the site, its controversies and more recent work by Dr Bernd Mueller Neuhof This has set the site in a clearer context, while by no means detracting from its singularity. The Black Desert is a fascinating place and the ‘lost city’ of Jawa is one of its rich archaeological treasures.

Alison Betts is the Edwin Cuthbert Hall Chair of the Archaeology and Mythology of the Ancient Near East at the University of Sydney. Professor Betts specialises in the archaeology of the lands along the Silk Roads from Western Asia to China. She has worked extensively in eastern Jordan, Karakalpakstan and Xinjiang and has a special interest in the study of nomadic peoples in mountains, deserts and steppes. Her current research centres around the dispersal of early domesticated plants and animals across Asia from their centres of origin in the Middle East and China.